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$: £% 





BY 


SAMUEL ROGERS. 


ILLUSTRATED WITH 12 ELEGANT MEZZOTINTO ENGRAVINGS. 


PHILADELPHIA: 


“) THOMAS T. ASH—CHESNUT STREET. 
; . 


Adam Waldie, Printer. 





PREFACE. 


Whatever may be the fate of this poem, it has 
led the author in many an after-dream through a 
beautiful country ; and-may not, perhaps, be unin- 
teresting to those who have learnt to live in past 
times as well as: present, and whose minds are 
familiar with the events and the people. that have 
rendered Italy so illustrious; for, wherever he 
came, he could not but remember; nor is he con- 
scious of having slept over any ground that had 
been “ dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue.” 

Much of it was originally published as it was 
written on the spot. He has since revised it 
throughout, and added many stories from the old 
chroniclers, and many notes illustrative of the 


manners, customs, and superstitions. 


* 





Sees 


CONTENTS. 


The Lake of Geneva 


The Great St. Bernard 


The Descent 

Jorasse 

Marguerite de Tours 
The Alps. 

Como . ° 
Bergamo 

Italy . . , 
Coll’alto 

Venice 

Luigi ; 
St. Mark’s Place 
The Gondola 

The Brides of Venice 
Foscari 


Marcolini 





he Ad 
; avhua 


. Ginevra 





Bologna a 
Florence 
Don Garzia ; 
The Campagna of Florence 
The Pilgrim 

An Interview 

: Rome 
A Funeral 
National Prejudices 
The Campagna of Rome 
The Roman Pontiffs 
Caius Cestius 
The Nun 

. - The Fire-Fly 
o! = Foreign Travel 
The Fountain 
~ Banditti 
: An Adventure 

a, Naples 

The Bag of Gold 

~~ A Character 
Pestum 
Amalfi ~ 
Monte Cassino 
The Harper 








Genoa ee ss a ae re 
Eat - Mareo Griffoni epee 
ot F _ A Farewell Oe ae fees 
ee Notes i 2) Tay a. 





Stock 
—& 
Poe 





Lae eee 











THE LAKE OF GENEVA, 


Day glimmer’d-in the east, and the white moon 
Hung like a vapour in the cloudless’sky, ~ 
Yet visible, when on my way I went, 

Glad to be gone—a pilgrim from the north, — 
Now more and more attracted as I drew 
Nearer and nearer. Ere the artisan, 
Drowsy, half-clad, had from his window leant, 
With folded arms and listless look, to snuff 
The morning air, or the caged sky-lark sung, 
From his green sod up-springing—but in vain, 
His tuneful bill o’erflowing with a song 

Old in the days of Homer, and his wings 

2 


: ie 
10 ITALY. 


With transport quivering,—on my way I went, 

Thy gates, Geneva, swinging heavily, 

Thy gates so slow to open, swift to shut; 

As on that Sabbath eve when he arrived,*t 

Whose name is now thy glory, now by thee 

Inscribed to consecrate (such virtue dwells 

In those small syllables) the narrow street, 

His birth-place—when, but one short step too late, 

He sate him down and wept—wept till the morn- 

ing 2 : 

Then rose to go—a wanderer through the world. 
’T is not a tale that every hour brings with it. 

Yet at a city-gate, from time to time, 

Much ‘might be learnt ; and most of all at thine, 

London—thy hive the busiest, greatest, still 

Gathering, enlarging still. Let us stand by, 

And note who passes. Here comes one,.a youth, 

Glowing with pride, the pride of conscious power, 

A Chatterton—in thought admired, caress’d, 

And crown’d like Petrarch in the Capitol ; 

Ere long to die—to fall by his own hand, 

And fester with the vilest. Here come two, 


* Rousseau. 


ITALY. ll 


Less feverish, less exalted, soon to part— ~ 
A Gartick and a J ohnson ; wealth and fame 
Awaiting one—even at the gate, neglect 

And want the other.. But what multitudes, 
Urged by the love of change, and, like myself, 
Adventurous, careless of to-morrow’s fare, 
Press on—though but a rill entering the sea, 


Entering and lost! Our task would never end. 


Day glimmer’d and I went, a gentle breeze 
Ruffling the Leman Lake. Wave after wave, 
If such they might be call’d, dash’d as in sport, 
Not anger, with the pebbles on the beach, 
Making wild music, and far westward caught 
The sun-beam—where, alone and as entranced, 
Counting the hours, the fisher in his skiff 
Lay with his circular and dotted line, 

Fishing in silence. When the heart is light 

With hope, all pleases, nothing comes amiss ; 

And soon a passage boat swept gaily by, 

Laden with peasant girls and fruits and flowers, 

And many a chanticleer and partlet caged 

For Vevay’s market-place—a motley group 

Seen through the silvery haze. But soon ’t was 
gone. 


# 

12 ITALY. 
The shifting sail flapped idly for an instant, 
Then bore them off. | 

I am not one of those 
So dead to. all things in this visible world, 
So wondrously profound—as to move on 
In the sweet light of heaven, like him of old? - 
(His name is justly in the Calendar), ~ 
Who through the day pursued this pleasant path 
That winds beside the mirror of all beauty,* 
And, when at eve his fellow-pilgrims-sate, 
Discoursing of the lake, ask’d where it was. 
They marvell’d, as they might ; and so must all, 
Seeing what now I saw; for now ’t was day, 
And the bright sun was in the firmament, 
A thousand shadows of a thousand hues" 
Chequering the clear expanse. Awhile his orb 
Hung o’er thy trackless fields of snow, Mont Blanc, 
Thy seas of ice and ice-built promontories, 
That change their shapes for ever as in sport ; 
Then travell’d onward,-and went. down behind 
The pine-clad heights of Jura, lighting up 
The woodman’s casement, and perchance his axé 
Borne homeward through the forest in his hand ; 
And, in some deep and melancholy glen, . 


. 
sane 
rs 





ITALY: ° 13 


That dungeon-fortress never to be named, 
Where, like a lion taken in the toils, 
Toussaint breathed out his brave and generous 
spirit. 

Ah, little did he think, who sent him there, 
That he himself, then greatest among men, 
Should in like manner be so soon convey’d 
Across the ocean—to a rock so small: - 
Amid the countless multitude of waves, 
That ships have gone and sought it, and return’d, 
Saying it was not! — 

Still along the shore, 
Among the trees I went for many a mile, 
Where damséels sit and weave their fishing nets, 
Singing some national song by the way-side. 
But now ’t was dusk, and journeying by the Rhone, 
That there came down, a torrent from the Alps, 
1 enter’d where a key unlocks a kingdom,* 
The mountains closing, and the road, the river, 
Filling the narrow pass. There, tillaray 
Glanced through my lattice, and the household stir 
Warn’d me to rise, to rise and to depart, 


* St. Maurice. 


4 


ig 





14 IhAgey. 


A stir unusual, and accompanied 

With many a tuning of rude instruments, 

And many a laugh that argued coming pleasure, 

Mine host’s fair daughter for the nuptial rite, 

And nuptial feast attiring—there I slept, 

And in my dreams wander’d once more, well 
pleased. 

But now a charm was on the rocks, and woods, 

And waters; for, methought, I was with those 


T had at morn, at even, wish’d for there. 


ITALY. 15 


THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 


NicuT was again descending, when my mule, 
That all day long had climb’d among the clouds, 
Higher and higher still,.as by a stair 
Let down from heaven itself, transporting me, 
Stopp’d, to the joy of both, at that low door 
So near the summit of the Great St. Bernard; 
That door which ever on its. hinges moved 
To them that knock’d, and nightly sends abroad 
Ministering spirits. Lying on the watch, 

Two dogs of grave demeanour welcomed me,° 
All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb ; 
And a lay-brother of the Hospital, 
Who, as we toil’d below, had heard by fits 
The distant echoes gaining on his ear, 
Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand, 
While I alighted. 

Long could I have stood, 
With a religious awe contemplating 
That house, the highest in the ancient world, 


16. ITALY. 


And placed there for the noblest purposes. 

*T was a rude pile of simplest masonry, 

With narrow windows and vast. buttresses, 

- Built to endure the shocks of time and chance; 
Yet showing many a rent, as well it might, 
Warr’d on for ever by the elements, 

And in an evil day, nor long ago, 

By violent men—when on the mountain-top 

The French and Austrian banners met in conflict. 


Qn the same rock beside it stood the church, 
Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity ; 
The vesper bell, for ’t was the vesper hour, 
Duly proclaiming through the'wilderness, 
‘¢ All ye who hear, whatever be your work, 
Stop for an instant—move your lips in prayer !”’ 
And, just beneath it, in that dreary dale, 
If dale it might be called, so near to heaven, 
A little lake, where never fish leap’d up, 
Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow ; 
A star, the only one in that small sky, 
On its dead surface glimmering. .”*T was a scene 
Resembling nothing I had left behind, 
As though all worldly ties were now dissolved ;— 


IT AGY. oS i 


And to incline the mind still more to thought, 
To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore, 
Under a beetling cliff stood, half in shadow, 
A lonely chapel destined for the dead, 
For such as, having wander’d from their way, 
Had perish’d miserably. Side by side, 
Within they lie, a mournful company, 
All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them ; 
Their features full of life, yet motionless 
In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change, 
Though the barr’d windows, barr’d against the 

wolf, 3 

Are always open! 

; But the Bise blew cold ;® 
And, bidden to a spare but clieerful meal, 
I sate among the holy brotherhood 
At their long board. The fare indeed was such 
As is prescribed on days of abstinence, | 
But might have pleased a nicer taste than mine ; 
And through the floor came up, an ancient matron 
Serving unseen below ; while from the roof 
(The roof, the floor, the walls, of native fir) 
A lamp hung flickering, such as loves to fling 
Its partial light on apostolic heads, 


18 ITALY. 


And sheds a grace on all. ‘Theirs time as yet 
Had changed not. Some were almost in the prime; 
Nor was a brow o’ercast.. Seen as I saw them, 
Ranged round their.ample hearth-stone in an hour 
Of rest, they were as gay, as free from guile, 

As children; answering, and at once, to all 

The gentler impulses, to pleasure, mirth ; 
Mingling, at intervals, with rational talk 

Music ; and gathering news from them that came, 
As of some other world. . But when the storm 
Rose, and the snow roll’d on in ocean billows, 
When on his face the experienced traveller fell, 
Sheltering his lips and nostrils with his hands, 
Then all was changed ; and, sallying with their pack 
Into that blank of nature, they became 

Unearthly beings. “ Anselm, higher up, 

Just where it drifts, a dog howls loud and long, 
And now, as guided by a voice from heaven, 

Digs with his feet. - That noble vehemence, 
Whose can it be, but his who never err’d? 

Let us to work! there is no time to lose !— 

But who descends Mont Velan? ’T is La Croix. 
Away, away ! if not, alas, too late. 


Homeward he drags an old man and a boy, 


ITALY. 19 


Faltering and falling, and but half awaken’d, 
Asking to sleep again.” Such their discourse. 


Oft has a venerable roof received me ; 

St. Bruno’s once*7—where, when the winds were 
hush’d, 

Nor from the cataract the voice came up, 

You might have heard the mole work under ground, 

So great the stillness of that place; none seen, 

Save when from rock to.rock a hermit cross’d 

By some rude bridge—or one at midnight toll’d 

To matins,:and white habits, issuing forth, 

Glided along those aisles interminable, 

All, all observant of the sacred law 

Of silence... Nor is that:sequester’d spot, 

Once called “ Sweet Waters,” now “ The Shady 
Vale,” t 

To me unknown; that house so rich of old, 

So courteous,’ and by two, that pass’d that way,t 

Amply requited with immortal verse, 

The Poet’s payment. 


* The Grand Chartreuse. 
{ Vallombrosa, formerly called Acqua Bella. 
t Ariosto and Milton. 


20 ITALY: 


But, among them all, 
None can with this compare, the dangerous seat 
Of generous, active virtue. What though frost 
Reign everlastingly, and ice and snow 
Thaw not, but gather—there is that within, 
Which, where it comes, makes summer; and in 

thought, ; 

Oft am I sitting on the bench beneath 
Their garden-plot, where all that vegetates © 
Is but some scanty lettuce, to observe 
Those from the South ‘ascending, every step 
As though it were their last—and instantly 
Restored, renew’d, advancing as with songs, 
Soon as they see, turning a lofty crag, 
That plain, that modest structure, promising 


Bread to the hungry,® to the weary rest. 


ITALY. | 


THE DESCENT. 


My mule refresh’d—and, let the truth be told, 

He was not of that vile, that scurvy race, 

From sire to son lovers of controversy, 

But patient, diligent, and sure of foot, 

Shunning the loose stone on the precipice, 

Snorting suspicion while with sight, smell, touch, 

Examining the wet and spongy moss, 

And on his haunches sitting to slide down 

The steep, the smooth—my mule -refresh’d, his 
bells 

Gingled once more, the signal to depart, 

And we set out in the gray light of dawn, 

Descending rapidly—by waterfalls 

Fast-frozen, and among huge blocks of ice 

That in their long career had stopt mid-way. 

At length, uncheck’d, unbidden, he stood still ; 

And all his bells were muffled. Then my guide, 

Lowering his voice, address’d me : “Through this 
chasm 


22 ITALY. 


On and say nothing—for a word, a breath, 
Stirring the air, may loosen and bring down 

A winter’s snow—enough to overwhelm 

The horse and foot that, night and day, defiled 
Along this path, to conquer at Marengo. 

Well I remember how I met them here, 

As the light died away, and how Napoleon, - 
Wrapt in his cloak—I could not be deceived— 
Rein’d in his horse, and ask’d me, as I pass’d, 
How far ’t was to St. Remi. Where the rock 
Juts forward, and the road, crumbling away, ; 
Narrows almost to nothing at its base, 

”*T was there ; and down along the brink he led 
To victory !—Dessaix, who turned the scale,' ° 
Leaving his life-blood in that famous field, 
(When the clouds break, we may discern the spot 
In the blue haze,) sleeps as you saw at dawn, 
Just as you enter’d, in the hospital-church.” 

So saying, for awhile he held his peace, 
Awe-struck beneath that dreadful canopy ; 

But soon, the danger pass’d, launch’d forth again. 


ITALY. o8 


JORASSE. 


JORASSE was in his three-and-twentieth year ; 
Graceful and active as a stag just roused ; 
Gentle withal, and pleasant in his speech, 
Yet seldom seen to smile. He had grown up 
Among the hunters-of the Higher Alps ; 
Had caught their starts and fits of thoughtfulness, 
Their haggard looks, and strange soliloquies, 
Said to arise by those who dwell below, 
From frequent dealings with the Mountain-Spirits. 
But other ways had taught him better things ; 
And now he number’d, marching by my side, 
The savans, princes, who with him had cross’d 
The frozen tract, with him familiarly 
Through the rough day and rougher night con- 

versed 

In many a chalét round the Peak of Terror,* 
Round Tacul, Tour, Well-horn, and Rosenlau, 


* The Schrekhorn. 


9A ITALY. 


. 
And Her, whose throne is inaccessible,* 


Who sits, withdrawn, in virgin majesty, 

Nor oft unveils. Anon an avalanche 

Roll’d its long thunder ; and a sudden crash, 

Sharp and metallic, to the startled ear 

Told that far down a continent of ice 

Had burst in twain. But he had now begun ; 

And with what transport he recall’d the hour, — 

When to deserve, to win his blooming bride, _ 

Madelaine of Annecy, to his feet he bound 

The iron crampons, and, ascending, trod 

The upper realms of Frost ; then, by a cord 

Let half-way down, enter’d a grot star-bright, 

And gather’d from above, below, around, 

The pointed crystals ! , 
Once, nor long before,*? 

(Thus did his tongue run on, fast as his feet, 

And with an eloquence that Nature gives 

To all her children—breaking off by starts 

Into the harsh and rude, oft as the mule 

Drew his displeasure,) once, nor long before, 

Alone at day-break on the Mettenberg, 


* The Jungfrau. 


PPADY ..’ 95 


He slipp’d, he fell; and, through a fearful cleft 
Gliding from ledge to ledge, from deep to deeper, 
Went to the Under-world! Long while he lay 
Upon his rugged bed—then waked like one 
Wishing to sleep again, and sleep for ever ! 
For, looking round, he saw or thought he saw 
Innumerable branches of a cavern, 
Winding beneath a solid crust of ice 5. 
With here and there a rent that show’d the stars ! 
What then, alas, was left him but to die? 
What else in those immeasurable chambers, 
Strewn with the bones of miserable men, 
Lost like himself? Yet must he wander on, 
Till cold and hunger set his:spirit free ! 
And, rising, he began his dreary round ; 
When, hark! the noise as of some mighty river 
Working its way to light! Back he withdrew, 
But soon return’d, and, fearless from despair, 
Dash’d down the dismal channel ; and all day, 
If day could be where utter darkness was, 
Travell’d incessantly, the craggy roof 
Just over head, and the impetuous waves, 
Nor broad nor deep, yet with a giant’s strength 
Lashing him on. At last the water slept 

3 


26 ITALY. 


In a dead lake—at the third step he took, 
Unfathomable—and the roof, that long 

Had threaten’d, suddenly descending, lay 

Flat on the surface. Statue-like he stood, 

His journey ended ; when a ray divine. 

Shot through his soul. Breathing a prayer to her 
Whose ears are never shut, the Blessed Virgin, 
He plunged, he swam—and in an instant rose, 
The barrier past, in light, in sunshine! Through 
A smiling valley, full of cottages, 

Glittering the river ran; and on the bank 

The young were dancing (’t was a festival day) 
All in their best attire. There first he saw 

His Madelaine. In the crowd she stood to hear, 
When all drew round, enquiring ; and her face,» 
Seen behind all, and, varying, as he spoke, 

With hope, and fear, and generous sympathy, 
Subdued him. From that very hour he loved. 


The tale was long, but coming to a close, 
When his dark eyes flash’d fire, and, stopping short, 
He listen’d and look’d up. I look’d up too ; 

And twice there came a hiss that through me 
thrill’d ! 


ITALY. 27 


”T was heard no more. A chamois on the cliff 
Had roused his fellows with that cry of fear, 
And all were gone.’ 
But now the thread was broken ; 
Love and its joys had vanish’d from his mind ; 
And he recounted his hair-breadth escapes 
When, with his friend, Hubert of Bionnay, 
(His ancient carbine from his shoulder slung, 
His:axe to hew a stair-case in the ice,) 
He track’d their footsteps. By a cloud surprised, 
Upon a crag among the precipices, 
Where the next step had hurl’d them fifty fathoms, 
Oft had they stood, lock’d in each other’s arms, 
All the long night under a freezing sky, 
Each guarding each the while, from sleeping, fall- 
ing. 
Oh! ’t was a sport he loved dearer than life, 
And only would with life itself relinquish ! 
«¢ My sire, my grandsire, died among these wilds. 
As for myself,” he cried, and he held forth 
His wallet in his hand, “ this do I call 
My winding sheet—for I shall have no other !” 


28 ITALY. 


And he spoke truth. Within a little month 
He lay among these awful solitudes, 
CT was on a glacier—half-way up to heaven) 
Taking his final rest. Long did his wife, 
Suckling her babe, her only one, look out 
The way he went at parting ; but he came not ! 
Long fear to close her eyes, lest in her sleep 
(Such their belief) he should appear before her, 
Frozen and. ghastly pale, or crush’d and bleeding, 
To tell her where he lay, and supplicate 
For the last rite! At length the dismal news 
Came to her ears, and to her eyes his corse. 


ITALY. 29 


MARGUERITE DE TOURS. 


Now the grey granite, starting through the 
snow, 

Discover’d many a variegated moss,* 
That to the pilgrim resting on his staff 
Shadows out capes and islands ; and ere long 
Numberless flowers, such as disdain to live 
In lower regions, and delighted drink 
The clouds before they fall, flowers of all hues, 
With their diminutive leaves cover’d the ground. 
’T was then that, turning by an ancient larch, 
Shiver’d in two, yet most majestical 
With its long level branches, we observed 
A human figure sitting on a stone 
Far down by the way-side—just where the rock 
Is riven asunder, and the Evil One 
Has bridged the gulf, a wondrous monument 
Built in one night, from which the flood beneath, 


* Lichen Geographicus. 


30. ITALY. 


Raging along, all foam, is seen, not heard, 

And seen as motionless ! 

Nearer we drew, 

And ’t was a woman young and delicate, 

Wrapped in a russet cloak from head to foot, 

Her eyes cast down, her cheek upon her hand, 

In deepest thought. Young as she was, she wore 

The matron-cap ; and from her shape we judged, 

As well we might, that it would not be long 

Ere she became a mother. Pale she look’d, 

Yet cheerful; though, methought, once, if not 

twice, 

She wiped away a tear that would be coming ; 

And in those moments her small hat of straw, 

Worn on one side, and garnish’d with a riband 

Glittering with gold, but ill conceal’d a face 

Not soon to be forgotten. Rising up 

On our approach, she journey’d slowly on; 

And my companion, long before we met, 

Knew, and ran down to greet her. | 
She was born 

(Such was her artless tale, told with fresh tears) 

In Val d’Aosta ; and an Alpine stream, 

Leaping from crag to crag in its short course 


* 


ITALY. 31 


To join the Dora, turn’d her father’s mill. 

There did she blossom till a Valaisan, 

A townsman of Martigny, won her heart, 

Much to the old man’s grief. Long he held out, 
Unwilling to resign her ; and at length, 

When the third summer came, they stole a match 
And fled. The act was sudden ; and when far 
Away, her spirit had misgivings. Then 

She pictured to herself that aged face 

Sickly and wan, in sorrow, not in anger ; 

And, when at last she heard his hour was near, 
Went forth unseen, and burden’d as she was, 
Cross’d the High Alps on foot to ask forgiveness, 
And hold him to her heart before he died. 

Her task wasdone. She had fulfill’d her wish, 
And now was on her way, rejoicing, weeping. 

A frame like hers had suffer’d ; but her love 
Was strong within her; and right on she went, 
Fearing no ill. May ail good angels guard her! 
And should I once again, as once I may, 

Visit Martigny, I will not forget 

Thy hospitable roof, Marguerite de Tours ; 

Thy sign the silver swan.* Heaven prosper thee! 


* La Cygne. 


¥ 
. 
~*~ 


: 


4 


(om 


‘ 


om 
* 
a 


4 
* 


"A something that informs him ’t is a moment 


32 ITALY, 


THE ALPS. ~ 


Wuo first beholds those everlasting clouds, 
Seed-time and harvest, morning, noon, and night, 
Still where they were, steadfast, immoveable ; 

“Who first beholds the Alps—that mighty chain 


Of mountains, stretching on from east to west, 


So massive, yet so shadowy, so ethereal, 


PP As to belong rather to heaven than earth— 


But instantly receives into his soul 
A sense, a feeling that he loses not, ied i 


Whence he may date henceforward and for ever? | 


To me they seem’d the barriers of a world, 
Saying, Thus far, no farther! and as o’er 
The level plain I travell’d silently, 
Nearing them more and more, day after day, 
My wandering thoughts my only company, 
And they before me still, oft as I look’d, 
A strange delight, mingled with fear, came o’er me, 


* 
x 


# 








LeALY. 33 


A wonder as at things I had not heard of! . 
And still and still I felt as though I gazed 
For the first time! Great was the tumult there, 
Deafening the din, when in barbaric pomp 
The Carthaginian on his march to Rome 
Entered their fastnesses. Trampling the snows, 
The war-horse reared ; and the tower’d elephant 
Upturned his trunk into the murky sky, 
Then tumbled headlong, swallowed up and lost, 
He and his rider.—Now the scene is changed ; 
And o’er the Simplon, o’er the Splugen, winds 
A path of pleasure. Like a silver zone 
Flung about carelessly, it shines afar, 
Catching the eye in many a broken link, 
In many a turn and traverse as it glides ; 
And oft above and oft below appears, 
Seen o’er the wall by him who journeys up, 
As though it were another, through the wild 
Leading along he knows not whence or whither. 
~ Yet through its fairy course, go where it will, 
The torrent stops it not, the rugged rock 
Opens and lets it in; and on it runs, 
Winning its easy way from clime to clime 
Thro’ glens lock’d up before. Not such my path! 


34 ITALY, 


The very path for them that dare defy 
Danger, nor shrink, wear he what shape he will ; 
That o’er the caldron, when the flood boils up, 
Hang as in air, gazing and shuddering on, 
Till fascination comes and the brain turns! 
The very path, for them that list, to choose 
Where best to plant a monumental cross, 

And live in story like Empedocles; - 

A track for heroes, such as he who came, 

Ere long, to win, to wear the Iron Crown ; 
And (if aright I judge, from what I felt 

Over the Drance, just where the abbot fell, 
Rolled downward in an after-dinner’s sleep) 
The same as Hannibal’s. But now ’tis passed, 
That turbulent Chaos ; and the promised land 
Lies at my feet in all its loveliness! 

To him who starts up from a terrible dream, 
And lo, the sun is shining, and the lark 
Singing aloud for joy—to him is not 

Such sudden ravishment as now I feel 

At the first glimpses of fair Iraty. 


“ITALY. 35 


COMO. 


I Love to sail along the Larian lake 

Under the shore—though not to visit Pliny, 
To catch him musing in his plane-tree walk, 
Or angling from his window :* and, in truth, 
Could I recall the ages past, and play 

The fool with time, I should perhaps reserve 
My leisure for Catullus on his lake, 

Though to fare worse, or Virgil at his farm 
A little further on the way to Mantua. 

But such things cannot.be. So I sit still 

And let the boatman shift his little sail, 

His sail so forked and so swallow-like, 

Well pleased with all that comes. The morning air 
Plays on my cheek how gently, flinging round 
A silvery gleam: and now the purple mists 
Rise like a curtain ; now the sun looks out, 
Filling, o’erflowing with his glorious light 


* Epist. I. 3. ix. 7. 


36 ITALY. 


This noble amphitheatre of hills ; 

And now appear as on a phosphor sea 
Numberless barks, from Milan, from Pavia ; 
Some sailing up, some down, and some at rest, 
Lading, unlading, at that small port town 
Under the promontory—its tall tower 
And long flat roofs, just such as Gaspar drew, 


Caught by a sunbeam slanting through a cloud ; 


A quay-like scene, glittering and full of life, 
And doubled by reflection. 

| What delight, 
After so long a sojourn in the wild, 

To hear once more the peasant at his work! 

—But in a clime like this where is he not? 
Along the shores, among the hills, ’tis now 

The hey-day of the vintage ; all abroad, 

But most the young and of the gentler sex, 

Busy in gathering ; all among the vines, 

Some on the ladder, and some underneath, 
Filling their baskets of green wicker-work, 
While many a canzonet and frolic laugh 


Come thro’ the leaves ; the vines in light festoons 


From tree to tree, the trees in avenues, 


And every avenue a covered walk 


ITALY. 37 


. Hung with black clusters. °Tis enough to make 
The sad man merry, the benevolent one 

Melt into tears—so general is the joy ! 

While up and down the cliffs, over the lake, 
Wains oxen-drawn, and panniered mules are seen, 
Laden with grapes and dropping rosy wine. 


Here I received from thee, Basilico, 

One of those courtesies so sweet, so rare ! 
When, as I rambled through thy vineyard ground 
On the hill side, thou sent’st thy little son, 
Charged with a bunch almost as big as he, 
To press it on the stranger. May thy vats 
O’erflow, and he, thy willing gift-bearer, 
Live to become a giver ; and, at length, 
When thou art full of honour and wouldst rest, 
The staff of thine old age ! 

In a strange land 
Such things, however trivial, reach the heart, 
And through the heart the head, clearing away 
The narrow notions that grow up at home, 
And in their place grafting good will to all. 
At least I found it so, nor less at eve, 


When, bidden as a lonely traveller, 


38 ITALY. 


(’Twas by a little boat that gave me chase 

With oar and sail, as homeward bound I crossed: 

The bay of Tramezzine,) right readily == . 

I turned my prow and followed, landing soon 

Where steps of purest marble met the wave ; 

Where, through the trellises and corridors, 

Soft music came as from Armida’s palace, 

Breathing enchantment o’er the woods and waters ; 

And through a bright pavilion, bright as day, 

Forms such as hers were flitting, lost among 

Such, as of old, in sober pomp swept by, 

Such as adorn the triumphs and the feasts 

By Paolo painted ; where a fairy queen, 

That night her birth-night, from her throne re- 
ceived 

(Young as she was, no floweret in her crown, 

Hyacinth or rose, so fair and fresh as she) 

Our willing vows, and by the fountain side 

Led in the dance, disporting as she pleased, 

Under a starry sky—while I looked on, 

As in a glade of Cashmere or Shiraz, 

Reclining, quenching’ my sherbet in snow, — 

And reading in the eyes that sparkled round, 

The thousand love adventures written there. 


ITALY. 39 


Can I forget—no never, such a scene 
So full of witchery. Night lingered still, 
When, with a dying breeze, I left Bellaggio ; 
But the strain followed me; and still I saw 
Thy smile, Angelica ; and still I heard 
Thy voice—once and again bidding adieu. 





: “A : <3, 
_ Tur song was one that I had heard before, ah a 
| But where I knew | ot. it inclined to éeditbas é nt 


i a ‘And, turning round from the delete ‘are 8 


ee 








- Figs Br -" : . 


4 os om 


“ Two boys ey: Sato. Poaetnt: Lik valk 


Ws 





They were, and poorly clad, but not unskilled ; 
“With Peit cniall acicen and an old guitar, 
added heart % 


ur 
Crh that, the only universal tongue. ey ae 





be Vining their way to my 


- But soon they changed the measure, entering on 


: 


A pleasant dialogue of sweet and sour, 

“ » A war of words, with looks and gestures waged, 
‘Between Trappanti and his ancient dame, 
Mona Lucilia. To and fro it went; 2 

While many a titter on the stairs was heard, a a ; 

And Barbara’s among them. When it ceased 4 


Their dark eyes flashed no longer, yet mmethought, 


Fs te eeer ; ‘ oe 
Wi a sf Ss . by o 
iat oy 





a 
wa 








ae eo 


ITALY. 4] 


In many a glance as from the soul, disclosed 


More than enough to serve them. Far or near, 
5 . : 
Few looked not for their coming ere they came, 


Few, when they went, but looked till they were 


gone ; 
And not a matron, sitting at her wheel, 
But could repeat their story. ‘Twins they were, 
And orphans, as I learnt, cast on the world ; 
Their parents lost in an old ferry-boat 
That, three years since last Martinmas, went down, 
Crossing the rough Benacus.* 

May they live 

Blameiess and happy—rich they cannot be, | 
Like him who, in the days of minstrelsy,t 
Came in a beggar’s weeds to Petrarch’s door, 
Asking, beseeching for a lay to sing, 
And soon in silk (such then the power of song) 
Returned to thank him; or like that old man, 
Old not in heart, who by the torrent side 
Descending from the Tyrol, as night fell; 
Knocked at a city gate near the hill-foot— 


* Lago di Garda. 
+ Petrarch, Epist. Rer. Sen. i. v. ep. 3. 
4 


42 ITALY. -} 


The gate that bore so long, sculptured in stone, 
An eagle on a ladder—and at once 

- Found welcome ; nightly in the bannered hall, 
Tuning his harp to tales of chivalry 

Before the great Mastino and his guests,* 

The three-and-twenty kings, by adverse fate, 
By war or treason or domestic strife, 

Reft of their kingdoms, friendless, shelterless, 
And living on his bounty. . 
7 _ But who’ comes, 
Brushing the floor with what was once, methinks, 
A hat of ceremony. On he glides, 

Slip-shod, ungartered ; his long suit of black, 
Dingy, thread-bare, tho’ patch by: patch renewed, 
Till it has almost ceased to be the same, 

At length arrived, and with a shrug that pleads 
«Tis my necessity !” he stops and speaks, 
Screwing a smile into his dinnerless face. 

‘¢ Blame not a poet, Signor, for his zeal— 

When all are on the wing, who would be last ? 
The splendour of thy name has gone before thee ; 
And Italy from sea to sea exults; 


* See note. 


ITALY. 43 


As well indeed she may! But | transgress. 
He, who has known the weight of praise himself, 
Should spare another.” Saying so, he laid 
His sonnet, an impromptu, at my feet, 
(If his, then Petrarch must have stolen it from him) 
And bowed and left me; in his hollow hand 
Receiving my small tribute, a zecchine, 
Unconsciously, as doctors do their fees. 

My omelet, and a flagon of hill-wine, 
Pure as the virgin spring, had happily 
Fled from all eyes; or, ina waking dream, 
I might have sat as many a great man has, 
And many a small, like him of Santillane, 


Bartering my bread and salt for empty praise. 


44 ITALY. 


ITALY. 


Am I in Italy ? ° Is this the Mincius ? 

Are those the distant turrets of ‘Verona ? 

And shall 1 sup where Juliet at the Masque 
First saw and loved, and now by him who came 
That night a stranger, sleeps from age to age? 
Such questions hourly do I ask myself; 

And not a stone, in a cross-way, inscribed 

“To Mantua”—“ To Ferrara”—but excites 


Surprise, and doubt, and self-congratulation. 


O Italy, how beautiful thou art ! 
Yet I could weep—for thou art lying, alas, 
Low in the dust ; and we admire thee now ~ 
As we admire the beautiful in death. 
"Thine was a dangerous gift, when thou wast born, 
The gift of beauty. Would thou hadst it not ; 
Or wert as once, awing the caitiffs vile 
That now beset thee, making thee their slave ! 
Would they had lov’d thee less or fear’d thee more ! 


ITALY. - 45 


But why despair? Twice hast thou lived already ; 
Twice shone among the nations of the world, 

As the sun shines among the lesser lights 

Of heaven ; and shalt again. The hour shall come 
When they who think to bind the ethereal spirit, 
Who, like the eagle cowering o’er his prey, 
Watch with quick eye, and strike and strike again, 


’. Tf but a sinew vibrate—shall confess 


Their wisdom folly. Even now the flame 
Bursts forth where once it burnt so gloriously, 
And, dying, left a splendour like the day, 

That like the day diffused itself, and still 

Blesses the earth—the light of genius, virtue, 
Greatness in thought and act, contempt of death, 
God-like example. Echoes that have slept 
Since Athens, Eacedeemon, were themselves, 
Since men invoked “ by those in Marathon !” 
Awake along the A‘vgean ; and the dead, 

They of that sacred shore, have heard the call, 
And thro’ the ranks, from wing to wing, are seen 
Moving as once they were—instead of rage 
Breathing deliberate valour. 


46 ITALY. 


COLL’ALTO. 


‘‘ In this neglected mirror (the broad frame 

Of massy silver serves to testify 

That many a noble matron of the house 

Has sat before it) once, alas, was seen 

What led to many sorrows. From that time 
The bat came hither for a sleeping place; ~ 

And he, that cursed another in his heart, . 

Said, ‘ Be thy dwelling, thro’ the day and night, 
Shunned like Coll’alto.’ > —’Twas in that old pile, 
Which flanks the cliff with its grey battlements 
Flung here and there, and, like am eagle’s nest, 
Hangs in the Trevisan, that thus the steward, 
Shaking his locks, the few that time had left, 
Addressed me, as we entered what was called 

“‘ My lady’s chamber.” On the walls, the chairs, 
Much yet remained of the rich tapestry ; 

Much of the adventures of Sir Lancelot 

In the green glades of some enchanted wood. 
The toilet-table was of silver wrought, 


LIPALY. AY 


Florentine art, when Florence was renowned ; 

A gay confusion of the elements, 

Dolphins and boys, and shells and fruits and flowers: 

And from the ceiling, in his gilded cage, 

Hung a small bird of curious workmanship, 

That, when his mistress bade him, would unfold 

(So says the babbling dame, Tradition, there) 

His emerald wings, and sing and sing again 

The song that pleased her. While 1 stood and 
looked, 

A gleam of day yet lingering in the west, 

The steward went on. “She had (’tis now long 
since) 

A gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine, 

Fair as a lily, and as spotless too ; 

None so admired, beloved. ‘They had grown up 

As play-fellows ; and some there were that said, 

Some that knew much, discoursing of Cristine, 

‘She is not what she seems.’ When unrequired, 

She would steal forth; her custom, her delight, 

To wander through and through an ancient grove 

Self-planted half way down, losing herself 

Like one in love with sadness ; and her veil 


And vesture white, seen ever in that place, 


48 ITALY. 


Ever, as surely as the hours came round, 
Among those reverend trees, gave her below ~ 
The name of The White Lady. But the day 
Is gone, and I delay thee. : 

a In that chair 
The countess, as it might be now, was sitting, 
Her gentle serving-maid, the fair Cristine, 
Combing her golden hair; and through this door 
The count, her lord, was hastening, called away 
By letters of great urgency to Venice ; | 
When in the glass she saw, as she believed, 
(Twas an illusion of the evil spirit— 
‘Some say he came and crossed it at the time) 
A smile, a glance at parting, given and* answered, 
That turned her blood to gall. That very night 
The deed was done. That night, ere yet the moon 
Was up on Monte Calvo, and the wolf 
Baying as still he does (oft is he heard, 
An hour and more by the old turret clock) 
They led her forth, the unhappy lost Cristine, 
Helping her down in her distress—to die. 

No blood was spilt ; no instrument of death 
Lurked, or stood forth,.declaring its bad purpose ; 


Nor was a hair of her unblemished head’ 


a 


ITALY. 49 


Hurt in that hour. Fresh as a flower just blown, 
And warm with life, her youthful pulses playing, 
She was walled up within the castle wall. 

The wall itself was hollowed secretly ; 

Then closed again, and done to line and rule. 
"Would’st thou descend? "Tis in a darksome vault 
Under the chapel: and there nightly now,* 

As in the narrow niche, when smooth and.fair, 
And as though nothing had been done or thought, 
The stone-work rose before her, till the light 
Glimmered and went—there, nightly, at that hour, 
(Thou smil’st, and would it were an idle tale !) 

In her white veil and vesture white, she stands 
Shuddering—her eyes uplifted, and her hands 
Joined as in prayer ; then, like a blessed soul 
Bursting the tomb, springs forward, and away 
Flies o’er the woods and mountains. Issuing forth, 
The hunter meets her in his hunting track ; 

The shepherd on the heath, starting, exclaims 
(For still she bears the name she bore of old) 
‘Tis the White Lady!” 


* 


50 ITALY. 


VENICE. .. 


THERE is a glorious city in the sea. 

The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, 

Ebbing.and flowing , and the salt sea-weed 

Clings to the marble of her palaces. ! 

No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, 

Lead to her gates. ‘The path lies o’er the sea, 

Invisible ; and from the land we went, 

As to a floating city—steering in, 

And gliding‘up her streets as in a dream, 

So smoothly, silently—by many a dome 

Mosque-like, and many a stately portico, 

The statues ranged along an azure sky ; 

By many a pile in more than eastern pride, 

Of old the resfdence of merchant-kings ; 

The fronts of some, tho’ time had shattered them, 

Still glowing with the richest hues of art, 

As though the wealth within them had run o’er. 
Thither I came, and in a wondrous ark, 

(That, long before we slipt our cable, rang 


ITALY. 5] 


As with-the voices of all living things,) 
From Padua, where the stars are, night by night, 
Watched from the top of an old dungeon-tower, 


Whence blood ran once, the tower of Ezzelin— 


- Not as he Witched them, when he read his fate 


And shuddered. But of him I thought not then, 

Him or his horoscope ; far, far from me 

The forms of guilt and fear ; tho’ some were there, 

Sitting among us round the cabin board, 

Some who, like him, had cried, ‘Spill blood 
enough !|” 

And could shake long at shadows. They had played 

Their parts at Padua, and were floating home, 

Careless and full of mirth ; to-morrow a day 

Not in their calendar. Who, in a strain 

To make the hearer fold his arms and sigh, 

Sings “ Caro, Caro !”—’Tis the Prima Donna, _ 

And to her monkey, smiling in his face, 

Who, as transported, cries,“ Brava! Ancora!” 

"Tis a grave personage, an old-‘macaw, 

Perched on her shoulder.—But who leaps ashore, 

And with a shout urges the lagging mules ; 


Then climbs a tree that overhangs the stream, 


And, like an acorn, drops on deck again? 


52 ITALY. 


Tis he who speaks not, stirs not, but we laugh ; 
That child of fun and frolic, Arlecchino. 

And mark their poet—with what emphasis 

He prompts the young Soubrette, conning her part ! 
Her tongue plays truant, and he raps his box, 
And prompts again ; for ever-looking round 

As if in search. of subjects for his wit, 

His satire ; and as often-whispering 

Things, though unheard, not unimaginable. 

Had I thy pencil, Crabbe, (when thou hast done, 
Late may it be .’. it will, like Prospero’s staff, 
Be buried fifty fathoms in the earth,) 
1 would portray the Italian—now I cannot. 
Subtle, discerning, eloquent, the slave 
Of love, of hate, for ever in extremes ; 
Gentle when unprovoked, easily won, 
But quick in quarrel—through a thousand shades 
His spirit flits, cameleon-like ; and-mocks: 
The eye of the observer. 

| Gliding on, 
At length we leave the river for the sea. . 
At length a voice aloft proclaims “ Venezia !” 
And, as called forth, she comes.—A few in fear, 
Flying away from him whose boast it was,* 


* Attila. 


ITALY. 53 


That the grass grew not where his horse had trod, 
Gave birth to Venice.. Like the water-fowl, 
They built their nests among the ocean waves ; 
And where the sands were shifting, as the wind 
Blew from the north or south—where they that 

came, — i | 
Had to make sure the ground they stood upon, 
Rose, like an exhalation from the deep, 
A vast metropolis, with glistering spires, 
With theatres, basilicas adorned ; 
A scene of light and glory, a dominion, 
That has endured the longest among: men. 

‘And whence the talisman, whereby she rose, 
Towering? Twas found ‘there in the barren sea. 
Want led to enterprise ; and, far or near, 

Who met not the Venetian? now among 

The Aigean Isles, steering from port to port, 
Landing and bartering ; now, no stranger there, 
In Cairo, or without the eastern gate, 

Ere yet the Cafila* came, listening to hear 

Its bells approaching from the Red Sea coast ; 


Then on the Euxine, and that smaller sea 


* A Caravan. 


54 ITALY. 


Of Azoph, in close converse with the Russ 
And Tartar ; on his lowly deck receiving 
Pearls from the Persian Gulf, gems from Golcond ; 
Eyes brighter yet, that shed the-light of love, 
From Georgia, from Circassia. Wandering round, 
When in the rich bazaar he saw, displayed, 
Treasures from climes unknown, he asked and 

learnt, 
And, travelling slowly upward, drew ere long. 
From the well-head, supplying all below ; 
Making the imperial city of the east, 
Herself, his tributary. 

If we turn 

To those black forests, where, thro’ many an age, 
Night without day, no axe the silence broke, 
Or seldom, save where Rhine or Danube rolled ; 
Where o’er the narrow glen a castle hangs, 
And, like the wolf that hungered at his door, 
The baron lived by rapine—there we meet, 
In warlike guise, the caravan from Venice ; 
When on its march, now lost. and now beheld, 
A glittering file (the trumpet heard, the scout 
Sent and recalled) but at a city gate 


All gaiety, and looked for ere it comes ; 


ITALY. 55 


Winning regard with all that can attract, 
Cages, whence every wild cry of the desert, 
Jugglers, stage-dancers. Well might Charlemain 
And his brave peers, each with his visor up, 
On their long lances:lean and gaze awhile, 
When the Venetian to their eyes disclosed 
The wonders of the east! Well might they then 
Sigh for new conquests ! : 

Thus.did Venice rise, 
Thus flourish, till the unwelcome tidings came, 
That in the Tagus had arrived a fleet 
From India, from the region of the sun, 
Fragrant with spices—that a way was found, 
A channel opened, and the golden stream 
Turned to enrich another. Then she felt 
Her strength departing, yet.a. while maintained 
Her state, her splendour ; till a tempest shook 
All things most held in honour among men, 
All things the. giant with the scythe had spared, 
To their foundations, and at once she fell ; 
She who had stood yet longer than the last 
Of the four kingdoms—who, as in an ark, 
Had floated down, amid a thousand wrecks, 


Uninjured, from the old world to the new, 


56 ITALY. 


From the last glimpse of civilised life, to where 
Light shone again, and with the blaze of noon. 
Thro’ many an age in the mid-sea she dwelt, 
From her retreat calmly contemplating 
The changes of the earth, herself unchanged. 
Before her passed, as in an awful dream, © 
The mightiest of the mighty. What are these, 
Clothed in their purple? er the globe they fling 
Their monstrous shadows; and, while yet we speak, 
Phantom-lke, vanish with a dreadful scream ! 
What—but the last that styled themselves the 
Cesars 1 . . 
And who in long array (look wie they come, 
Their gestures menacing so far and wide) 
Wear the green turban and the heron’s plume ? 
Who—but the caliphs? followed fast by shapes 
As new and strange—emperor, and king, and czar, 
And soldan—each, with a gigantic stride, 
Trampling on all the flourishing works of peace 
To make his greatness greater, and inscribe 
His name in blood—some, men of steel, steel-clad ; 
Others, nor long, alas, the interval, 
In light and gay attire, with brow serene ; 
Wielding Jove’s thunder, scattering sulphurous fire 


1d 
a 


ITALY. 57 


Mingled with darkness ; and, among-the rest, 
Lo, one by one, passing continually, 

Those who assume a sway beyond them all; 
Men gray with age, each in a triple crown, 
And in his tremulous hands grasping the keys 
That can alone, as he would signify, 


Unlock heaven’s gate. 


58 ITALY. 


LUIGI. 


‘ Harry is he who loves companionship, 

And lights on thee, Luigi. Thee I found 
Playing at Mora on the cabin-roof 

With Punchinello. ’Tis a game to strike 

Fire from the coldest heart. What then from thine? 
And, ere the twentieth throw, I had resolved, 
Won by thy looks. ‘Thou wert an honest lad ; 
Wert generous, grateful, not without ambition. 
Had it depended on thy will alone, 

Thou wouldst have numbered in thy family 

At least six Doges and the first in fame. 

But that was not to be. In thee I saw 

The last, if not the least, of a long line, 

Who in their forest, for three hundred years, 
Had lived and laboured, cutting, charring wood ; 
Discovering where they were, to those astray, 
By the re-echoing stroke, the crash, the fall, 

Or the blue wreath that travelled slowly up 

Into the sky. Thy nobler destinies 


ITALY. 59 


Led thee away to justle in the crowd ; 
And there I found thee—by thine own advice 
Trying once more a change of air and diet, 
Crossing the sea, and springing to the shore 
As though thou knewest where to dine and sleep. 

First in Bologna didst thou plant thyself, 
Serving behind a cardinal’s gouty chair, 
Listening and oft replying, jest for jest ; 
Then in Ferrara, every thing by turns, 
So great thy genius and so Proteus-like ! 
Now serenading in a lover’s train, 
And measuring swords with his antagonist ; 
Now carving, cup-bearing, in halls of state ; 
And now a guide to the lorn traveller, 
A very Cicerone—yet, alas, 
How unlike him who fulmined in old Rome! 
Dealing out largely, in exchange for pence, 
Thy scraps of knowledge—thro’ the grassy street 
Leading, explaining—pointing to the bars 
Of Tasso’s dungeon, and the Latin verse, 
Graven in the stone that yet denotes the door 
Of Ariosto. 

Many a year is gone 

Since on the Rhine we parted ; yet, methinks, 


60 ITAwY: 


I can recall thee to the life, Luigi, 

In our long journey ever by my side ; 

Thy locks jet-black, and clustering round a face 

Open as day, and full of manly daring. 

Thou hadst a hand, a heart, for all that came, 

Herdsman or pedler, monk or muleteer ; 

And few there were that met thee not with smiles. 

Mishap passed o’er thee like a summer cloud. 

Cares thou hadst none; and they, that stood to 
hear thee, ) . 

Caught the infection and forgot their own. 

Nature conceived thee in her merriest mood, 

Her happiest—not a speck was in the sky ; 

And at thy birth the cricket chirped, Luigi, 

Thine a perpetual voice—at every turn 

A larum to the echo. Ina clime 

- Where all were gay, none were so gay as thou; 

Thou, like a babe, hushed only by thy slumbers ; 

Up hill and down, morning and noon and night, 

Singing or talking ; singing to thyself 

When none gave ear, but to the listener talking. 


ITALY. 61 


ST. MARK’S PLACE. 


Over how many tracts, vast, measureless, 
Ages on ages roll, and none appear 
Save the wild hunter ranging for his prey ; 
While on this spot of earth, the work of man, 
How much has been transacted! Emperors, popes, 
Warriors, from far and wide, laden: with spoil, 
Landing, have here performed their several parts, 
Then left the stage to others. Not a stone 
In the broad pavement, but to him who has 
An eye, an ear for the inanimate world, 
Tells of past ages. 
In that temple-porch, 
(The brass is gone, the porphyry remains,) 
Did Barbarossa fling his mantle off, 
And, kneeling, on his neck receive the foot 
Of the proud pontifi—thus at last consoled 
For flight, disguise, and many an aguish shake 
On his stone pillow. In that temple-porch, 
Old as he was, so near his hundredth year, 


62 ITALY. 


And blind—his eyes put out—did Dandolo 
Stand forth, displaying on his crown the cross. 
There did he stand, erect, invincible, 

Tho’ wan his cheeks, and wet with many tears, 
For in his prayers he had been weeping much; 
And now the pilgrims and the people wept 
With admiration, saying in their hearts, 
“Surely those aged limbs have need of rest !” 
—There did he stand; with his old armour on, 
Ere, gonfalon.in hand, that streamed aloft, . 

As conscious of its glorious destiny, 

So soon to float o’er mosque and minaret, 

He sailed away, five hundred gallant ships, 
Their lofty sides hung with emblazonéd shields, 
Following his track to fame. He went to die ; 
But of his trophies four arrived ere long, 
Snatched: from destruction—the four steeds divine, 
That strike the ground, resounding with their feet, 
And from their nostrils snort ethereal flame 
Over that very portal—in the place 

Where, in an after-time, beside the doge, 


Sat one yet greater,* one whose verse shall live 


* Petrarch. 


ITALY. 63 


When the wave rolls o’er Venice. High he sat, 
High over all, close by the ducal chair, - 

At the right hand of his illustrious host, 

Amid the noblest daughters of the realm, 
Their beauty shaded from-the western ray 

By many-coloured hangings ; while, beneath, 
Knights of all nations, some of fair renown 

From England, from victorious Edward’s court, 
Their lances in the rest, charged for the prize. 

Here, among other pageants, and how oft 

It met the eye, borne through the gazing crowd, 
As if returning to console the least, 

Instruct the greatest, did the doge go round ; 
Now ina chair of state, now on his bier. 

They were his first appearance, and his last. 

The sea, that emblem of uncertainty, 

-Changed not so fast for many and many an age, 
As this small spot. To-day. ’t was full of masks ; 
And lo, the madness of the carnival, 

The monk, the nun, the holy legate masked ! 
To-morrow came the scaffold and the wheel ; 
And he died there by torch-light, bound and gagged, 
Whose name and crime they knew not. Underneath 
Where the archangel, as alighted there, 


64 ITALY. 


Blesses the city from the topmost tower, 

His arms extended—there, in monstrous league, 

Two phantom-shapes were sitting, side by side, 

Or up, and, as in sport, chasing each other; _ 

Horror and Mirth. Both vanished in one hour! 

But Ocean only, when again he claims 

His ancient rule, shall wash away their footsteps. 
Enter the palace by the marble stairs 

Down which the grizzly head of old Faliér 

Rolled from the block. Pass onward thro’ the hall, 

Where, among those drawn in their ducal robes, 

But one is wanting—where, thrown off in heat, 

A brief inscription on the doge’s chair 

Led to another on the wall as brief : 

And thou. wilt track them-—wilt, from rooms of 

state, | 

Where kings have feasted, and the festal song . 

Rung through the fretted roof, cedar and gold, 

Step into darkness ; and be told, « "T’ was here, 

Trusting, deceived, assembled but to die, 

To take a long embrace and part again, 

Carrara and his valiant sons were slain ; 

He first—then they, whose only crime had been 

Struggling to save their father.” Thro’ that door, 


ITALY: 65 
*. : aero ; 
So soon to cry, smiting his brow, “ I’m lost !” 
Was with all courtesy, all honour, shown 





The great and noble captain, Carmagnola. 

That deep descent (thou canst not yet discern 

Aught as it is) leads to the dripping vaults 

Under the flood, where light and warmth were 
never ! 

Leads to a covered bridge, the Bridge of Sighs ; 

And to that fatal closet at the foot, 

Lurking for prey, which, when a victim came, 

Grew less and less, contracting to a span ; 

An iron door, urged onward by a screw, ; 

But let us to the roof, 

And, when thou hast surveyed the sea, the land, 





Forcing out life. 


Visit the narrow cells that cluster there, 

As ina place of tombs. There burning suns, 
Day after day, beat unrelentingly ; 

Turning all things to dust, and scorching up 
The brain, till reason fled, and the wild yell 
And wilder laugh burst out on every side, 


Answering each other as in mockery ! 





Few houses of the size were better filled ; 
Though many came and left it in an hour. 
“ Most nights,” so said the good old Nicolo, 


66 ITALY. 


| = 
(For three-and-thirty years his uncle kept * 


The water-gate below, but seldom spoke, 
Though much was on his mind,) “ most nights 
arrived | : 

The prison-boat, that boat with many oars, 

And bore away as to the lower world, 

Disburdening in the canal Orfano, 

That drowning-place, where never net was thrown, 

Summer or winter, death the penalty ; | 

And where a secret, once deposited, 

Lay till the waters should give up their dead.” 
Yet what so gay as Venice? Every gale 

Breathed music! and who flocked not, while she 

reigned, 

To celebrate her nuptials with the sea ; 

To wear the mask, and mingle in the crowd 

With Greek, Armenian, Persian—night and day 

(There, and there only, did the hour stand still,) 

Pursuing, through her thousand labyrinths, 

The enchantress Pleasure ; realising dreams, 

The earliest, happiest—for a tale to catch 

Credulous ears, and hold young hearts in chains, 

Had only to begin, ‘There lived in Venice” 





«¢ Who were the six we supped with yesternight ?* 


* See Note. 


ITALY. 67 


Kings, one and all! ‘Thou couldst not but remark 
The style and manner of the six that served them.” 
‘«¢ Who answered me just now? Who, when I said 
‘°T is nine,’ turned round and said so solemnly, 
‘Signor, he died at nine!’ "I was the Armenian; 
The mask that follows thee, go where thou wilt.” 

‘‘ But who moves there alone among them all ?” 
“The Cypriot. Ministers from distant courts 
Beset his doors, long ere his rising hour ; 

His the great secret! Not the golden house 

Of Nero, nor those fabled in the east, 

Rich though they were, so wondrous rich as his! 
Two dogs, coal-black, in collars of ‘pure gold, 

Walk in his footsteps—who but his familiars? 
He casts no shadow, nor is seen to smile ! 

And mark him speaking. ‘They that listen stand 
As if his tongue dropped honey ; yet his glance 
None can endure! He looks nor young nor old ; 
And at a tourney where I sat and saw, 

A very child (full threescore years are gone) 
Borne on my father’s shoulder through the crowd, 
He looked not otherwise. Where’er he stops, 
Though short the sojourn, on his chamber wall, 


Mid many a treasure gleaned from many a clime, 


68 ITALY. 


His portrait hangs—but none must notice it;.  ~ 


For Titian glows in every lineament, 
(Where is it not inscribed, ‘The work is his !) 
And Titian died two hundred years ago.” | 

Such their discourse. Assembling-in St. Mark’s, 
All nations met as on enchanted ground ! 
What tho’ a strange mysterious power was there, 
Moving throughout, subtle, invisible, 
And universal as the air they breathed ; 
A power that never slumbered, nor forgave, 
All eye, all ear, no where and every where, 
Entering the closet and the sanctuary, 
No place of refuge for the doge himself; 
Most present when least thought of—nothing dropt 
In secret, when the heart was on the lips, 
Nothing in feverish sleep, but instantly - 
Observed and judged—a power, that if but named 
In casual converse, be it where it might, 
The speaker lowered at. once his eyes, his voice, 
And pointed upward as to God in heayen—— 
What tho’ that power was there, he who lived thus, 
Pursuing pleasure, lived as if it were not. ! 
But let him in the midnight air indulge . 
A word, a thought against the laws of Venice, 
_And in that hour he vanished from the earth! 


ITALY. 69 


THE GONDOLA. © 





Boy, call the Gondola; the sun is set. 
It came, and we embarked ; but instantly, 

As at the waving of a magic wand, 

Though she had stept on board so light of foot, 
So light of heart, laughing she knew not why, 
Sleep overcame her ; on my arm she slept. 

From time to time I waked her ; but the boat 
Rocked her to sleep again. 'The:moon was now 
Rising full-orbed, but broken by a cloud. 

The wind was hushed, and the sea mirror-like. 

A single zephyr, as enamoured, played 

With her loose tresses, and drew more and more 
. Her veil across her bosom. Long I lay 
Contemplating that face so beautiful, 

That rosy mouth, that cheek dimpled with smiles, 
That neck but half concealed, whiter than snow. 
*T was the sweet slumber of her early age. 

I looked and looked, and felt a flush of joy 


I would express but cannot. Oft I wished 


70° ITALY. 


Gently —by stealth—to drop asleep myself, 
And to incline yet lower that sleep might come ; 
Oft closed my eyes as in forgetfulness. 
T was all in vain. Love would not let me rest. 
But how delightful when at length she waked ! 
When, her light hair adjusting, and her veil 
So rudely scattered, she resumed her place 
Beside me ; and, as gaily as before, 
Sitting unconsciously nearer and nearer, 
Poured out her innocent mind! 
So, nor long since, 
Sung a Venetian : and his lay of love,* 
Dangerous and sweet, charmed Venice. For my- 
self, | 
(Less fortunate, if love be happiness) 
No curtain drawn, no pulse beating alarm, 
I went alone beneath the silent moon ; 
Thy square, St. Mark, thy churches, palaces, 
Glittering and frost-like, and, as day drew on, 
Melting away, an emblem of themselves. 
Those porches passed, thro’ which the water- 
breeze 


* La Biondina in Gondoletta. 


ITALY. ~ 71 


Plays, though no longer on the noble forms 
That moved there, sable-vested—and the quay, 
Silent, grass-grown,—adventurer-like I launched 
Into the deep, ere long discovering 
Isles, such as cluster in the southern seas, 
All verdure. Every where, from bush and brake, 
The musky odour of the serpents came ; 
Their slimy track across the woodman’s path 
Bright in the moonshine: and, as round I went, — 
Dreaming of Greece, whither the waves were 
gliding, 

I listened to the venerable pines 
Then in close converse, and, if right I guessed, 
Delivering many: a message to the winds 
In secret, for their kindred on Mount Ida. 

Nor when again in Venice, when again 
In that strange place, so stirring and so still, 
Where nothing comes to drown the human voice 
But music, or the dashing of the tide, | 
Ceased I to wander. Now a Jessica 
Sung to her lute, her signal as she sat 
At her half-open window. Then, methought, 
A serenade broke silence, breathing hope 


Thro’ walls of stone, and torturing the proud heart 


a 
» 


72 at ITALY 


Of some Priuli. Once, we could not err, 

(It was before an old Palladian house, 

As between night and day we floated by) 

A Gondolier lay singing ; and he sung, 

As in the time when Venice was herself, 

Of Tancred and Erminia. On our oars - 
We rested; and the verse was:verse divine ! 
We could not err—perhaps he was the last— 
For none took up the strain, none answered him; 
And when he ceased, he left upon my ear . 

A something like the dying voice of Venice! 

The moon went down, and nothing now was seen 
Save where the lamp of a Madonna shone 
Faintly—or heard, but when. he spoke, who stood 
Over the lantern at the prow and cried, 

Turning the corner of some reverend pile, 

Some school or hospital of old renown, 

Though haply none were coming, none were near, 
‘“‘ Hasten or slacken.” * But at length night fled ; 
And with her fled, scattering, the sons of pleasure. 
Star after star shot by, or, meteor-like, 


Crossed me and. vanished—lost at once among 


Xe * Premi 0 stali. 
“gs : 


ana 


—e 


» 


ITALY.  ge73 


Those hundred isles that tower majestically, 
That rise abruptly from the water mark, 

Not with rough crag, but marble, and the work 
Of noblest architects. I lingered still ; 

Nor sought my threshold, till the hour was come 
And past, when, flitting home in the gray light, 
The young Bianca found her father’s door, 
That door so often with a trembling hand, 

So often—then so lately left ajar, 

Shut ; and, all terror, all perplexity, 

Now by her lover urged, now by her love, 


Fled o’er the waters to return no more. 


e™ 





‘g2 a bs 
ay 
¢ *- 
148 ITALY. . 
: + 4s ¥ 


THE BRIDES OF VENICE. 


Irv was St. Mary’s eve, and all poured forth . 

For some great festival. The fisher came 

From his green islet, bringing o’er the waves 

His wife and little one ; the husbandman 

From the firm land, with many a friar and nun, 

And village maiden, her first flight from home, 

Crowding the common ferry. All arrived ; 

And in his straw the prisoner turned and listened, 

So great the stir in Venice. Old and young 

Thronged her three hundred bridges ; we saree 
Turk, | a ag 


x ¢ tins i 
Turbaned, long-vested, and the cozening ia s 


A, 


In yellow hat and thread-bare gaberdine, =e 


Hurrying along. For, as the custom was, — ee 


The noblest sons and daughters of the state, 
Whose names are written in the Book of Gold, 
Were on that day to solemnise their nuptials. 


> 


PR 

















And never from their earliest hour was seen 


Such splendour or such beauty. Two and two, 
(The richest tapestry unrolled before them) - 
First came the brides; each in her virgin-veil, 
Nor unattended by her bridal maids, 
The two that, step by step, behind her bore 
The small but precious caskets that contained 
The dowry and the presents. On she moved, 
Her eyes cast down, and holding in her hand 
A fan, that gently waved, of ostrich plumes. 
Her veil, transparent as the gossamer, 
Fell from beneath a starry diadem; 
And on her dazzling neck a jewel shone, 
Ruby or diamond, or dark amethyst; 
A jewelled chain, in many a winding wreath, 
Wreathing her gold brocade. 

Before the church, 
That venerable structure now no more 
On the sea-brink, another train they met, 
No strangers, nor unlooked for ere they came, 
Brothers to some, still dearer to the rest ; 


Each in his hand bearing his cap and plume, 
Wy: 


“ . 
76 AIGA Ye, 


+ 
And, as he walked, with modest dignity 
Folding his scarlet mantle. At the gate , 
They join ; and slowly up the bannered aisle 
Led by the choir, with due solemnity 
Range round the altar. In his vestments there 
The Patriarch stands; and, while the anthem flows, 
Who can look on unmoved—the dream of years 
Just now fulfilling? Here a mother weeps, 
Rejoicing in her daughter. ‘There a son 
Blesses the day that is to make her his; 
While she shines forth through all her ornament, 
Her beauty heightened by her hopes and fears. 

At length the rite is ending. All fall down, 
All of all ranks ; and, stretching out-his hands, 
Apostle-like, the holy man proceeds . 
To give the blessing—not a stir, a breath ; 
When hark, a din of voices from without, 
And shrieks and groans and outcries as in battle! 
And lo, the door is burst, the curtain rent, 
And armed ruflians, robbers from the deep, 
Savage, uncouth, led on by Barbaro, 
And his six brothers in their coats of steel, i. 
Are standing on the threshold! Statue-like, ig 
Awhile they gaze upon the fallen multitude, 


a nie’ ame 
ga 


i 





a, 
ye ¢ 


ITALY. 77 
¥ 4 


ee, 


Each with his sabre up, in act to strike ‘ | 
Then, as at once recovering from the spell, 
Rush forward to the altar, and as soon 
Are gone again—amid no clash of arms. 
Bearing away the maidens and the treasures. 
Where are they now !—ploughing the distant 
waves, 
Their sails out-spread and given to the wind, | 
They on their decks triumphant. On they speed, 
Steering for Istria; their accursed barks 
(Well are they known, the galliot and the galley,) 
Freighted, alas, with all that life endears! 
The richest argosies were poor to them! 
Now hadst thou seen along that crowded shore 
The matrons running wild, their festal dress 
A strange and moving contrast to their grief ; 
And through the city, wander where thou wouldst, 
The men half armed and arming—every where, 
. As roused from slumber by the stirring trump ; 
One with a shield, one with.a casque and spear; 
One with an axe severing in two the chain 
Of some old pinnace. Not a_raft, a plank, 
But on that day was drifting. In an hour 
Half Venice was afloat. But long before, 





78 ITALY. 


Frantic with grief, and scorning all control, 
The youths were gone in a light brigantine, | 
Lying at anchor near the arsenal ; 
Each having sworn, and by the holy rood, | 
To slay or to be slain. . 

And from the tower 
The watchman gives the signal. In the east 
A ship is seen and making for the port ; 
Her flag St. Mark’s. And now she turns the point, 
Over the waters like a sea-bird flying ! 
Ha, ’t is the same, ’t is theirs! from stern to prow 
Green with victorious wreaths, she comes to bring 
All that was lost. Coasting, with narrow search, 
Friuli—like a tiger in his spring, 
‘They had surprised the Corsairs where they lay 
Sharing the spoil in blind security, 
And casting lots—had slain them, one and.all, 
All to the last, and flung them far and wide 
Into the sea, their proper element ; 
Him first, as first in rank, whose name so long 
Had hushed the babes of Venice, and who yet, 
Breathing a little, in his look retained 
The fierceness of his soul. 


Thus were the brides: 


ITALY. 79 


Lost and recovered ; and what now remained 

But to give thanks? Twelve breast-plates and 
twelve crowns, 

By the young victors to their patron-saint 

Vowed in the field, inestimable gifts 

Flaming with gems and gold, were in due time, 

Laid at his feet ; and ever to preserve 

The memory of a day so full of change, 

From joy to grief, from grief to joy again, 

Through many an age, as oft as it came round, 

’T was held religiously. The Doge resigned 

His crimson for pure ermine, visiting 

At earliest dawn St. Mary’s silver shrine ; 

And through the city, in a stately barge 

Of gold, were borne with songs and symphonies 

Twelve ladies, young and noble. Clad they were 

In bridal white with bridal ornaments, 

Each in her glittering veil;-and on the deck, 

As on a burnished throne they glided by ; 

No window or balcony but adorned . 

With hangings of rich texture, not a roof 

But covered with beholders, and the air 

Vocal with joy. Onward they went, their oars 


Moving in concert with the harmony, 


80 TVA. 


Through the Rialto to the ducal palace, _ 


_ And at a banquet, served with honour there, 


Sat representing, in the eyes of all, | 
Eyes not unwet, I ween, with grateful tears, 
Their lovely ancestors, the Brides of Venice. 


ITALY. 





FOSCARI. 


Ler us lift up the curtain, and observe 
What passes in that chamber. Now a sigh, 
And now a groan is heard. » Then all is still. 
Twenty are sitting as in judgment there ; 
Men who have served their country, and grown grey 
In governments and distant embassies, 
Men eminent alike in war and peace ; 
Such as in effigy shall long adorn 
The walls of Venice—to shew what she was! 
Their garb is black, and black the arras is, 
And sad the general aspect: Yet their looks 
Are calm, are cheerful; nothing there like grief, 
Nothing or harsh or cruel. Still that noise, 
That low and dismal moaning. 

| Half withdrawn, 
A little to the left, sits one in crimson, 
A venerable man, fourscore and five. 
Cold drops of sweat stand on his furrowed brow. 
His hands are clenched; his eyes half shut and 


glazed ; 


82 ITALY: 


His shrunk and withered limbs rigid as marble. 
Tis Foscari the Doge. And there is one, 

A young man, lying at his feet, stretched out 

In torture. *Tis his son. ”*Tis Giacomo, 

His only joy, (and has he lived for this?) 
Accused of murder. Yesternight the proofs, | 
If proofs they be, were in the lion’s mouth 
Dropt by some hand unseen ; and he himself 
Must sit and look on a beloved son 


Suffering the question. Twice, to die in peace, 





To save, while yet he could, a falling house, 
And turn the hearts of his fell adversaries, 
Those who had now, like hell-hounds in full ery, 
Chased down his last of four,—twice did he ask 
To lay aside the crown, and they refused, 

An oath exacting, never more to ask ; 

And there he sits, a spectacle of woe, 
Condemned in bitter mockery to wear 

The bauble he had sighed for. 


The screw is turned ; and, as it turns, the son 


Once again 





Looks up, and, in a faint and broken tone, 
Murmurs “ My father!” The old man shrinks back, 
And in his mantle muffles up his face. 


“‘ Art thou not guilty?” says a voice, that once 


a. 


ITALY. 83 


Would greet the sufferer long before they met ; 
s Art thou not guilty ?’”—“No! Indeed I am not !” 
But all is unavailing. In that court 

Groans are confessions ; patience, fortitude, 
The work of magic ; and, released, revived, 

Fc or condemnation, from his father’s lips 

Fe fears‘ the sentence, ‘‘ Banishment to Candia. 
Death if he leaves it.” And the bark sets sail ; 
And he is gone from all he loves in life ! 

Gone in the dead of night—unseen of any— 
Without a word, a look of tenderness, 

To be called up when in his lonely hours © 

He would indulge in weeping. Like a ghost, 
Day after day, year after year, he haunts 

An ancient rampart, that o’erhangs the sea; 
Gazing on vacancy, and hourly there 

Starting as from some wild and uncouth dream, 
To answer to the watch. Alas, how changed 
From him, the mirror of the youth of Venice ! 
Whom in the slightest thing, or whim or chance, 
Did he but wear his doublet so and so, 

All followed ; at whose nuptials, when he won 
That maid at once the noblest, fairest, best, 

A daughter of the house that now among 





r Siete on the igi « ee frou to front, teu Lee ¢: . 
a ‘And blaze on blaze reflecting, met and ranged — in 
ieee 1 Pes PF ey at, ; ‘; 
os To tourney in St. Marks. But lo, at last, aes ee my 
ohh Messengers come. He is recalled: his heart | ee 
ing Leaps at the tidings. He embarks: the boat 
ee Springs to the oar, and back again he goes— : % 
__ Into that very chamber! there to lie . 


In his old resting place, the bed of steel ; 

And thence look up (five long, long years: 3 of grief 

Have not killed either) on his wretched sire, 

Still in that seat—as though he had not stirred ; 
- Immoveable, and muffled in his cloak. 

But now he comes, convicted of a crime 

bt ; Great by the laws of Venice. Night and day, 
___ Brooding on what he had been, what he was,— 





_ °T was more than he could bear. His longing fits 
_ Thickened upon him. His desire for home 

~ Became a madness; and, resolved to 20, 

If but.to die, in his despair he writes _ 

A letter to the sovereign prince of Milan, 

(To him whose name, among the greatest now, 


ay 


- : = q ; as 
4 RY a 











Had perished, blotted out at once and rased, 
But for the rugged limb of an old oak,) 
Soliciting his influence with the state, 

And drops it to be found.—“< Would ye know all? 
_I have transgressed, offended wilfully ; 

And am prepared to suffer as I ought. 

But let me, let me, if but for an hour, 

(Ye must consent—for all of you are sons, 

Most of you husbands, fathers,) let me first 
Indulge the natural feelings of a man, 

And, ere I die, if such my sentence be, 

Press to my heart (’tis all I ask of you) 

My wife, my children—and my aged mother— 
Say, is she yet alive?” He is condemned. 

To go ere set of sun, go whence he came, 

y A banished man ; and for a year to breathe 
- The vapour of a dungeon. But his prayer 

(What could they less?) is granted. In a hall 
Open and crowded by the common herd, 

*T was there a wife and her four sons, yet young, 
A mother borne along, life ebbing fast, 

And an old doge, mustering his strength in vain, 
Assembled now, sad privilege, to meet 


One so long lost, one who for them had braved, 


ae 


86 as ITALY. 


For them had sought—death, and yet worse than 
death ; | 

To meet him, and to part with him for ever !— 
Time and their wrongs hadchanged them all, him 
: most ; 

Yet when the wife, the mother 1bcka again, 

°T was he—’t was he himself, t? was Giacomo ! 
And all clung round him, weeping bitterly ; 

“‘ Weeping the more, because they wept in vain.” 

Unnerved, and now unsettled in his mind 
From long and exquisite pain, he sobs and cries, 
Kissing the old man’s cheek, “Help me, my father ! 
Let me, I pray thee, live once more among ye: 
Let me go home.” “My son,” returns the doge, 
Mastering his grief, “if thou art indeed my son,. 
Obey. Thy country wills it.” 
Giacomo 

That night embarked ; sent to an early grave 

For one whose dying words, “ ‘The deed was mine ! 
He is most innocent! °T was I who did it!” 
Came when he slept in peace. The ship, that = 
Swift as the winds with his deliverance, 

Bore back a lifeless corpse. Generous as brave, 


Affection, kindness, the sweet offices 


ITALY. 87 


Of duty and love were from his tenderest years 
To him as needful as his daily bread ; 
And to become a by-word in the streets, 
Bringing a stain on those who gave him hfe, 
And those, alas, now worse than fatherless— 
To be proclaimed a ruffian, a night stabber, 
He on whom none before had breathed reproach— 
He lived but to disprove it. That hope lost, 
Death followed. Oh, if justice be in heaven, 
A day must come of ample retribution ! 

Then was thy cup, old man, full to the brim. 
But thou wert yet alive ; and there was one, 
The soul and spring of all that enmity, 
Who would not leave thee; fastening on thy flank, 
Hungering and thirsting, still unsatisfied ; 
One of a name illustrious as thine own! 
One of the Ten! one of the Invisible Three ! 
°T was Loredano. When the whelps were gone, 
He would dislodge the lion: from his den ; : 
And, leading on the pack he long had led, 
The miserable pack that ever howled 
Against fallen greatness, moved that Foscari 
Be Doge no longer ; urging his great age ; 


Calling the loneliness of grief neglect 


ye? 
4 


88 ITALY. 


Of duty, sullenness against the laws. 

“IT am most willing to retire,” said he ; 

«¢ But I have sworn, and cannot of myself. 

Do with me as ye please.”’ He was deposed, 

He, who had reigned so long and gloriously ; 

His ducal bonnet taken from his brow, 

His robes stript off, his seal and signet-ring 

Broken before him. But now nothing moved 

The meekness of his soul. All things alike ! 

Among the six that came with the decree, 

Foscari saw one he knew not, and enquired 

His name. ‘Iam the son of Marco Memmo.”’ 

‘“‘ Ah,” he replied, “‘ thy father was my friend.” 
And now he goes. ‘It is the hour and past. 

“¢ But wilt thou not 

Avoid the gazing crowd? That way is private.” 


I have no business here.”’ 





‘No! as I entered, so will I retire.” 

And, leaning on his staft, he left the house, 

His residence for five-and-thirty years, 

By the same stairs. up which he came in state ; 
Those where the giants stand, guarding the ascent, 
Monstrous, terrific. At the foot he stopt, 

And, on his staff still leaning, turned and said, 


“¢ By mine own merits did I come. I go, 


ITALY. 89 


Driven by the malice of mine enemies.’ 
Then to his boat withdrew, poor as he came, 
Amid the sighs of them that dared not speak. 

This journey was his last. When the bell rang 
At dawn, announcing a new Doge to. Venice, 
It found him on his knees before the Cross, 
Clasping his aged hands in earnest prayer ; 
And there he died. Ere half its task was done, 
It rang his knell. 

But whence the deadly hate 
That caused all this—the. hate of Loredano ? 
It was a legacy his father left, 
Who, but for Foscari, had reigned in Venice, 
And, like the venom in the serpent’s bag, 
Gathered and grew ! Nothing but turned to hate! 
In vain did Foscari supplicate for peace, 
Offering in marriage his fair Isabel. 
He changed not, with a dreadful piety 
Studying revenge : listening to those alone 
Who talked of vengeance ; grasping by the hand 
Those in their zeal (and none were wanting there) 
Who came to tell him of another wrong, 
Done or imagined. When his father died, 
They whispered, ‘Twas by poison !’ and the words 
7 


hen ee eek ne ee OP ee 


90 ITALY 


Struck him as uttered from his father’s grave. — 
He wrote it on the tomb (’tis there in marble) 
And with a brow of care, most merchantélike, 
Among the debtors in his leger-book | 
Entered at full (nor month, nor day forgot) 
‘ Francesco Foscari—for nry Father’s death.’ 
Leaving a blank—to be filled up hereafter. 
When Foscari’s noble heart at length gave way, 
He took the volume from the shelf again 7 
Calmly, and with his pen filled up the blank, 
Inscribing, ¢ He has paid me.’ 

Ye who sit 
Brooding from day to day, from day to day 
Chewing the bitter cud, and starting up 


As tho’ the hour was come to whet your fangs, 


_ And, like the Pisan, gnaw the hairy scalp 


Of him who had offended—if ye must, 
Sit and brood on; but O forbear to teach 
The lesson to your children. 


ITALY. “91 - 


MARCOLINI. 


LS 


It Teas midnight; the great clock had struck, and 
was still echoing ‘through every porch and gallery 
in-the quarter of St. Mark, when a young citizen, 
wrapt in his cloak, was hastening home under it 
from an interview with his mistress. His step was 
light, for his heart was so. Her parents had just 
consented to their marriage ; and the very day was 
named. “Lovely Giulietta ! he cried. ‘ And 
shall I then call thee mine at last? . Who was ever 
so blest as thy Marcolini?” But as he spoke, he 
stopped; for something glittered on the pavement 
before him. It was a scabbard of rich workman- 

. ship; and the discovery, what was it but an earnest 
of good fortune? ‘Rest thou there!” he cried, 
thrusting it gaily into his belt. “If another claims 
thee not, thou hast changed masters !” and on he 
went as before, humming the burden of a song 
which he and his Giulietta had been singing toge- 
ther. But how little we know what the next 
minute will bring forth! He turned by the church of 





te = Ce a ew a 


es 
oa ITALY. 


St. Geminiano, and in three steps met the watch. 
A murder had just been committed. The senator 
Renaldi had been found dead at his door, the dag- 
ger left in his heart ; and the unfortunate Marcolini 
was dragged away for examination. The place, 
the time, every thing served to excite, to justify 
suspicion ; and no sooner had he entered the guard 
house than a damning witness appeared against 
him. The bravo in his flight had thrown away his 
scabbard; and smeared with blood, with blood not 
yet dry, it was now in the belt of Marcolini. Its 
patrician ornaments struck every eye; and when 
the fatal dagger was produced and compared with 
it, not a doubt of his guilt remained. Still there is 
in the innocent an energy, a composure, an energy 
when they speak, a composure when they are silent, 
to which none can be altogether insensible; and”~ 
the judge delayed for some time to pronounce the 
sentence, though he was the near relation of the » 
dead. At length, however, it came ; and Marcolini 
lost his life, Giuhetta her reason. 

Not many years afterwards the truth revealed it- 
self, the real criminal in his last moments confess- 
ing the crime; and hence the custom in Venice, a 
custom that long prevailed, for a crier to cry out in 


ITALY. 93 


the court before a sentence was. passed, “ Ricorda- 
tevi del povero Mareolini !?* , 

Great indeed was the lamentation throughout the 
city ; and the judge, dying, directed that thenceforth 
and for ever a mass should be sung every night in 
a chapel of the Ducal Church for his own soul and 
the soul of Marcolini, and the souls of all who had 
suffered by an unjust judgment. Some land on the 
Brenta was left by him for the purpose: and still is 


the mass sung in the chapel; still every night, | 


when the great square is illuminating, and the casi- 
nos are filling fast with the gay and the dissipated, 
a bell is rung as for a service, and a ray of light 
seen to issue from a small gothic window that 
looks towards the place of execution, the place 
where on a scaffold Marcolini breathed his last. 


* ¢¢ Remember the poor Marcolint!” 


a 
FE 


ge 


‘. 


opt se ITALY. 


oj: Sali ARQUA. 


Three leagues from Padua stands, and long has 
‘stood | 

(The Paduan student knows it, honours it) 

A lonely tomb beside a mountain-church ; 

And I arrived there as the sun declined 

Low in the west. The gentle airs, that breathe 

Fragrance at eve, were rising, and the birds 

Singing their farewell-song—the very song 

They sung the night that tomb received a tenant ; 

When, as alive, clothed in his canon’s stole, 

And slowly winding down the narrow path, 

He came to rest there. Nobles of the land, 


Princes and prelates, mingled in his train, 


_ Anxious by any act, while yet they could, 


To catch a ray of glory by reflection ; 
And from that hour have kindred spirits flocked 
From distant countries, from the north, the south, 


To see where he is laid. z : 


o 


ITALY. - 95 


Twelve years ago, © 
When 1 descended the impetuous Rhone, . 
Its vineyards of such great and old renown,* 
Its castles, each with some romantic tale, 
Vanishing fast—the pilot at the stern, 
He who had steered so long, standing aloft, 
His eyes on the white breakers, and his hands 
On what was now his rudder, now his oar, . 
A huge misshapen plank—the bark itself 
Frail and uncouth, launched to return no more ; 
Such as a shipwrecked man might hope to build, 
Urged by the love of home—Twelve years ago, 
When like an arrow from the cord we flew, 
Two long, long days, silence, suspense on board, 
It was to offer at thy fount, Vaucluse, 
Entering the arched Cave, to wander where 
Petrarch had wandered, to explore and sit 
Where in his peasant-dress he loved to sit, 
Musing, reciting—on some rock moss-grown, 
Or the fantastic root of some old beech, 
That drinks the living waters as they stream 


Over their emerald-bed ; and could I now 


* The Cote Rotie, the Hermitage, &c. 


. di 
a, 


‘ sae, 
Fe , 


- 3" 


- 
+ 


LTALY: 





Neglect the place where, in a graver mood, 
When he-had done and settled with the world, 
When all the illusions of his youth were fled, 
Indulged perhaps too much, cherished too long, 
He came for the conclusion? Half way up 

He built his house, whence as by stealth he caught, 
Among the hills, a glimpse of busy life 

That soothed, not stirred. But knock, and | 


enter in. a 





; * This was his chamber. *Tis as when he went ; 


%.i, 
a. 


a 


_. This was his chair ; and in it, unobserved, 


_ As if he now were in his orchard grove. - 


And this his closet. Here he sat and read. 


Reading, or thinking of his absent friends, 


He passed away as in a quiet slumber. 


Peace to this region! Peace to each, to all! 


They know his value—every coming step, 


That draws the gazing children from their play, 
Would tell them if they knew not. But could 
aught, 





Ungentle or ungenerous, spring up 

Where he is sleeping ; where, and in an age 
Of savage warfare and blind bigotry, 

He cultured all that could refine, exalt ; 
Leading to better things ? 


* 


a . 





GINEVRA. 


tad 


If thou shouldst ever come by choice or chance - 
To Modena, where still religiously 

Among her ancient trophies is preserved. 
Bologna’s bucket (in its chain it hangs : 
Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandine) 
Stop at a palace near the Reggio-gate, 

Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini. 

Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace, ~ 
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses, 

Will long detain thee ; thro’ their arched walks, 


_ Dim at noon-day, discovering many a glimpse 


Of knights and dames, such as in old romance, = 


And loyers, such as in heroic song, ' 


Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight, 
That in the spring time, as alone they sat, — 
Venturing together on a tale of love, 

Read only part that day.*—— A summer-sun 
Sets ere one half is seen; but, ere thou go, 


* Inferno. V. 


vu 
* s 


et 4: 
a Ps 


‘ o 
98 ITABNS 


Enter the house—prythee, forget it not— - 
And look awhile upon a picture there. 
’Tis of a lady in her earliest youth, 
The very last of that illustrious race, » 
Done by Zampieri*—but I care not whom. 
He, who observes it—ere he passes on, 
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again, 
» That he may call it up, when far away. a 
She sits, inclining forward as to pale 
_ Her lips half open, and her finger up, 
As though she said ‘ Beware !’ her vest of gold « 
Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to 
foot, | 
_ An emerald stone in every golden clasp ; 
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster, 
A coronet of pearls. But then her face, 
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, 
The overflowings of an innocent heart— 
It haunts me still, though many a sign, has fled, 
Like some wild melody ! 
Alone it hangs 
Over a mouldering heir-loom, its companion, 
An oaken chest, half eaten by the worm, 


* Commonly called Domenichino. 


ws 


7 - 


~ 
* 


ITALY. 99 


But richly carved by Antony of Trent 
With scripture-stories from the life of Christ ; 
A chest that came from Venice, and had held 


The ducal robes of some old ancestor. . 
That by the way—it may: be true or false— es 
But don’t forget the picture ; and thou wilt not, . es 
When thou hast heard the tale they told me there. 

She was an only child; from infancy , ge 
The joy, the pride of an indulgent sire. % aah 
Her mother dying of the gift she gave, a 


That precious gift, what else remained to him? ~ 

The young Ginevra was his all in life, 

Still as she grew, for ever in his sight ; 

And in her fifteenth year became a bride, aie 

Marrying“an only son, Fittigeteo Doria, | 

Her playmate from her birth, and her first love. 
Just as she looks there in her bridal dress, 

She was all gentleness, all gaiety, 

Her pranks the favourite theme of every tongue. 

But now the day was come, the day, the hour ; 

Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time, 

The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum ; 

And in the lustre of her youth, she gave 

Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco. 


100 ITA 


Great was the joy; but at the bridal feast, 
When all sat down, the bride was wanting there. 
Nor was she to be found! Her father eried, 
‘Tis but to make a trial of our love’ * 

And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook, 

And soon from guest to guest the panic spread. 

’T was but that instant she had left Francesco, 

Laughing and looking back and flying still, 

‘Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger. 

But now, alas, she was not to be found ; 

Nor from that hour could any thing be guessed, 

But that she was not ! ? 

| Weary of his life, 

Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith 

Flung it away in battle with the Turk. * 

Orsini lived; and long might’st thou have seen 

An old man wandering as in quest of something, 

Something he could not find—he knew not what. 

When he was gone, the house remained awhile» 

Silent and tenantless—then went to strangers. 
Full fifty years were past, and all forgot, 

When on an idle day, a day of search 

Mid the old lumber in the gallery, 


That mouldering chest was noticed; and ’twas said 


i ve 
PPRAL'Y. | 101 


By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra, 
«¢ Why not remove it from its lurking place ?” 
*T was done as soon as said; but on the way 
- It burst, it fell; and lo, a skeleton, 
With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone, 
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold. 
All else had perished—save a nuptial ring, 
And a small seal, her mother’s legacy, 
Engraven with a name, the name of both, 
“¢ Ginevra.” 

There then had she found a grave! 
Within that chest had she concealed herself, 
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy ; 
When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there, 
Fastened her down for ever! _ 


102 ITALY. 


BOLOGNA, © 


"T'was night ; the noise and bustle of the day 

Were o’er. ‘The mountebank no longer wrought 

Miraculous cures—he and his stage were gone ; 

And. he who, when the crisis of his tale ! 

Came, and all stood breathless with hope and fear, 

Sent round his cap; and he who thrummed his wire 

And sang, with pleading look and plaintive strain 

Melting the passenger. ‘Thy thousand cries,* 

So well portrayed and by a son of thine, 

Whose voice had swelled the hubbub in his youth, 

Were hushed, Bologna, silence in the streets, . 

The squares, when hark, the clattering of fleet 
hoofs ; 

And soon a courier, posting as from far, 

Housing and holster, boot and belted coat 


| 
* See the Cries of Bologna, as drawn by Annibal Carracci. He 
was‘of very humble origin; and, to correct his brother’s vanity, once 


sent him a portrait of their father, the tailor, threading his needle. 
es oo 


~ 


4 


_ raee 4 


* 
~ 


<4 





ITALY. ees 
And doublet, stained with many a various soil, 
Stopt and alighted. ”I'was where hangs aloft 


That ancient sign, the pilgrim, welcoming 





All who arrived there, all perhaps save those 
Clad like himself, with staff and scallop-shell, 
Those on a pilgrimage. And now approached 
Wheels, through the lofty porticoes resounding, 
Arch beyond arch, a shelter or a shade 
As the sky changes. To the gate they came. 
And, ere the man had half his story done, 
Mine host received the Master—one long used 
To sojourn among strangers, every where 
(Go where he would, along the wildest track) 
Flinging a charm that shall not soon he lost, - 
And leaving footsteps to be traced by those 
Who love the haunts of Genius ; one who saw, 
Observed, nor shunned the busy scenes of life, 
But mingled not, and mid the din, the stir, 
Lived as a separate spirit. 

: Much had passed 
Since last we parted; and those five short years— 
Much had they told! His clustering locks were 


turn’d ee 


*% 


Grey ; nor did aught Tecgs the youth that swam 


*% a 


oe Ss 


. 
€. ’ 
 ] . 


ae PeAa ©. 





j i* 
From Sestos to Abydos. Yet his voice 
Still it was sweet ; still from his eye thé" bughe 
Flashed lightning-like, nor lingered on the way, — 
Waiting for words. Far, far into the night 

We sat, conversing—no unwelcome hour, 

The hour we met ; and, when Aurora rose, 
Rising, we climbed the rugged Apennine. 

Well I remember how the golden sun - 

Filled with its beams the unfathomable gulfs, 

As on we travelled, and along the ridge, 

"Mid groves of cork and cistus and wild-fig, 

His motley household came—Not last nor least, 
Battista, who upon the moonlight-sea ° 
Of Venice, had so ably, zealously, 
Served, and, at parting, thrown his. oar away 

To follow through the world; who without stain 
Had worn so long that honourable badge,* . 
The gondolier’s, ina patrician house 

Arguing unlimited trust.—Not last nor least, 
Thou, tho’ declining in thy beauty and strength, 
Faithful Moretto, to the latest hour 


* The principal gondolier, il fante di poppa, was almost always in 
the confidence of his master, and employed on occasions that requir- 


ed judgment and address. 


eee ee 4 ene Say 
-- : “ae 


en | 
ITALY. 7 “Phos 

- iy ¥ 

Guarding his chamber-door, and now along “ 
The silent, sullen strand of Missolonghi J 


Howling in grief. 

He had just left that place 
Of old renown, once in the Adrian sea,* 
Ravenna! where, from Dante’s sacred tomb 
He had so oft, as many a verse declares,t 
Drawn inspiration ; where, at twilight-time, 
Through the pine-forest wandering with loose rein, 
Wandering and lost, he had so oft beheldt: 
(What is not visible to a poet’s eye ?)— 
The spectre-knight, the hell-hounds and their prey, 
The chase, the slaughter, and the festal mirth 
Suddenly blasted. *I'was a theme he loved, | 
But others claimed their turn ; and many a tower, 
Shattered, uprooted from its native rock, 
Its strength the pride of some heroic age, 
Appeared and vanished (many a sturdy steer§ 
Yoked and unyoked) while as in happier days 
He poured his spirit forth. The past forgot, 


* Adrianum mare.—Cic. } See the Prophecy of Dante. 
¢ See the tale as told by Boccaccio and Dryden. 
§ They wait for the traveller’s carriage at the foot of every hill. 


8 


106° ITALY. 


All was enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured _ 


Present or future. 


+74, 


He is now at rest;,. . 
And praise and blame fall on his ear alike, 
Now dull in death. Yes, Byron, thou art gone, 
Gone like a star that through the firmament. 
Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course 
Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks, 


Was generous, noble—noble in its scorn 


_ Of all things low or little; nothing there | 


oe. 


we) 


Sordid or servile. If imagined wrongs. 
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do 


Things long regretted, oft, as many know, 


None more than I, thy gratitude would build 
On slight foundations: and, if in thy life 


Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert, 

Thy wish accomplished ; dying in the land 

Where thy young mind had caught ethereal fire, 

Dying i in Greece, and in a. cause so glorious! 
rhey in thy train—ah, little did they think, 

As Pind we went, that they so soon should sit 





Mourning beside thee, while a nation mourned, 
Changing her festal for her funeral song ; 
That they so soon should hear the minute-gun, 


ITALY. | 107 
ce 
As morning gleamed on what remained of thee, 
Roll o’er the sea, the mountains, numbering ¢- aa 
Thy years of joy and sorrow. ; ‘ me 
Thou art gone ; , 
And he who would assail thee in thy grave, 
Oh, let him pause! For who among us all, 
Tried as thou wert—even from thine earliest 
years, . 

When wandering, ‘yet unspoilt, a highland-boy— 
Tried as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame ; 
Pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek, 
Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine, 
Her charmed cup—ah, who among us all 
Could say, he had not erred as much, and more ? 


a 


108 ; ITALY. 


_ FLORENCE. 


Of all the fairest cities of the earth 
None is so fair as Florence. Tis a gem 
Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth, 
When it emerged from darkness! Search within, 
Without ; all is enchantment ! Tis the past 
Contending with the present ; and in turn. 
Each has the mastery. 

In this chapel wrought 
One of the few, Nattire’s interpreters, - ~ 
The few, whom Genius gives as lights to shine, 
Massaccio ; and he slumbers underneath. 
Wouldst thou behold his monument ? Look round ! 
And know that where we stand, stood oft and long, 
Oft till the day was gone, Raphael himself, 
He and his haughty rival*—patiently, 
Humbly, to learn of those who came before, 


* Michael Angelo. 


ITALY. 109 


To steal a spark from their authentic fire, 
Theirs who first broke the universal gloom, | 
Sons of the morning.—On that ancient seat,* ad 
The seat of stone that runs along the wall, 
South of the church, east of the belfry-tower, 
(Thou canst not miss it,) in the sultry time 
Would Dante sit conversing, and with those 
Who little thought that in his hand he held 

The balance, and assigned at his good pleasure 
To each his place in the invisible world, 

To some an upper region, some a lower; ~ 
Many a transgressor sent to his account, 

Long ere in Florence numbered with the dead ; 
The body still as full of life and stir 

At home, abroad ; still and as-oft inclined 

To eat, drink, sleep ; still clad as others were, 
And at noon-day, where men were wont to meet, 
Met as continually ; when the soul went, 
Relinquished to a demon, and by him | 

(So says the bard, and who can-read and doubt ’) 
Dwelt in and governed.—Sit thee down awhile ; 


Then, by the gates so marvellously wrought, 


* A tradition. 


- a ae a 


110 ITALY. 


That they might serve to be the gates of heaven, 

Enter the Baptistery. That place he loved, 

Loved as his own ;* and in his visits there 

Well might he take delight! For when a ehild, 

Playing, as many are wont, with venturous feet 

Near and yet nearer to the sacred font, 

Slipped and fell in, he flew and rescued him, 

Flew with an energy, a violence, _ 

That broke the marble—a mishap ascribed 

To evil motives ; his, alas, to lead ©. 

A life of trouble, and ere long to leave 

All things most dear to him, ere long to know 

How salt another’s bread is, and the toil 

Of going up and down another’s stairs.— 
Nor then forget that chamber of the dead, 

Where the gigantic shapes of night and day, 

Turned into stone, rest everlastingly ; 

Yet still are breathing, and shed round at noon 

A two-fold influence—only to-be felt—- 

A light, a darkness, mingling each with each; - 

Both and yet neither. . There, from-age to age, 

Two ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres. 


* Mia bel Giovanni. Inferno. 19, t Paradiso. 17. 


ITALY. 111 


That is the Duke Lorenzo. . Mark him well. 

He meditates, his head upon his hand. 

What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls ? 

Is it a face, or but an eyeless scull ? 

’Tis lost in shade ; yet, like the basilisk, 

It fascinates, and is intolerable. 

His mien is noble, most majestical ! 

Then most so, when the distant choir is heard 

At morn or eve—nor fail thou to attend 

On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there ; 

When all, propitiating with solemn songs, 

Visit the dead. Then wilt thou feel his power ! 
But let not scul pture, painting, poesy, 

Or they, the masters of these mighty spells, 

Detain us. Our first homage is to Virtue. 

Where, in what dungeon of the citadel, 

(lt must be known—the writing on the wall 

Cannot be gone—’twas with the blade cut in, 

Ere, on his knees to God, he slew himself,) 

Did he, the last, the noblest citizen,* 

Breathe out his soul, lest in the torturing hour - 

He might accuse the guiltless !—That debt paid 


* Filippo Strozzi. 


ee a Ee me 
; ,* a © 

+ : ¢ 

2 i " A 


. 11>. = Ay; 


Bat with-a Sighs tear for human frailty, 

We may return, and once more give a loose 
To the delighted spirit, worshipping, 

In her small temple of rich workmanship,* 
Venus herself, who, when she left the skies, ~ 
Came hither. | 


= 


aC ig * The Tribune. 
45 “e 2 . ‘ 





ITALY. 113. 


DON GARZIA. 


Among those awful forms, in elder time 7 
Assembled, and through many an after. page 
Destined to stand as Genii of the place. : 

Where men most meet in Florence, may be seen 
His who first played the tyrant. ~ Clad in mail, 
But with his helmet off—in kingly state, 

Aloft he sits upon his horse of brass ; 

And they, that read the legend underneath, 

Go and pronounce him happy.* Yet, methinks, 
There is a chamber that, if walls could speak, 
Would turn their admiration into pity. | 

Half of what passed, died with him ; but the rest 
All he discovered when the fit was on, 
All that, by those who listened, could be gleaned 
From broken sentences and starts in sleep, . 


Is told, and by an honest chronicler. 


* Cosmo, the first Grand Duke. {+ De Thou. 


me 


114 ITALY. 


Two of his sons, Giovanni and Garzia, 
(The oldest had not seen his nineteenth summer,) _ 
Went to the chase; but only one returned. 


Giovanni, when the huntsman blew his horn 


O’er the last stag that started from the brake, © 


And in the heather turned to stand at bay, 

Appeared not; and at close of day was found 

Bathed in his innocent blood, . ‘Too well, alas, 

The trembling Cosmo guessed the deed, the doer ; 

And, having caused the body to be borne - 

In secret to that chamber—at an hour 

When all slept sound, save she who bore them 
both,* — 

Who little thought of what was yet to come, 

And lived-but to be told—he bade Garzia 

Arise and follow him. Holding in one hand 

A winking lamp, and in the other a key 

Massive and. dungeon-like, thither he led ; 

And, having entered in and locked the door, 

The father fixed his eyes upon the son, 

And closely questioned him. No change betrayed 

Or guilt or fear. ‘Then Cosmo lifted. up 


--  * Bleonora di Toledo. 


ITALY. 115 


The bloody sheet. ‘“ Look there ! Look there!” 
he cried. : 
“Blood calls for blood—and. from a father’s hand ! 
—Unless thyself wilt save him that sad office. 
What !” he exclaimed, when, oe at the 
sight, 
The boy breathed out, “1 stood but on my. ne is 
“Dar’st thou then blacken one who never wronged 
thee, | 
Who would not set- his. foot upon a worm ?— 
Yes, thou must die, lest ethers fall by thee, 
And thou shouldst be the slayer of us all.” 
Then from Garzia’s belt he drew the blade, 
That fatal one which spilt his brother’s blood ; | 
And, kneeling on the ground, “ Great God!” he et 
cried, | 
Grant me the strength to do an act of justice. ; 
Thou knowst what it costs me; but, alas, oy 
How can I spare myself, sparing none else’? 
Grant me the strength, the will—and oh forgive 
The sinful soul of a most wretched son. 
Tis a most wretched father that implores it.” 
Long on. Garzia’s neck he hung and wept, 


Long pressed him to his bosom tenderly ; 


116 ITALY. 


And then, but while he held him by the arm, 
Thrusting him backward, turned away his face, 
And stabbed him to the heart. 

| ‘Well might a youth,* 
Studious of meny-anxious to learn and. know, 
When in the train of some great embassy 
He came, a visitant to Cosmo’s-court; 
Think on the past ; and, as he wandered through 
The ample spaces of.an ancient house, . 
Silent, deserted—stop awhile to dwell 
Upon two portraits there, drawn on the wall 
Together, as of two in bonds of love, 
Those of the unhappy brothers, and conclude 
From the sad looks of him who could have told 
The terrible truth. Well might he heave a sigh 
For poor humanity, when he beheld 


That very Cosmo shaking o’er his fire, : =~ 


Drowsy and deaf and inarticulate, 


Wrapt in his night gown, o’er a sick man’s mess, ’ 


In the last stage—death-struck and deadly pale; 
His wife, another, not his Eleanor, 


At once his nurse and his interpreter. 


* De Thou. 
t The Palazzo Vecchio. Cosmo had left it several years before. 


aastt 


te 


ITALY. The 


THE CAMPAGNA OF FLORENCE. 


Tis morning. . Let us wander through the fields, 
Where Cimabué found a shepherd-boy* 
Tracing his idle fancies on the ground; 
And let us from the top of .Fiesole, 
Whence Galileo’s glass by night observed 
The phases of the moon, look round below’ 
On Arno’s vale, where the dove-coloured steer 
Is ploughing up and down among the vines, 
While many a careless note is sung aloud, 
Fillmg the air with sweetness—and on thee, 
Beautiful Florence, all within thy walls, - 
Thy groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers, 
Drawn to our feet. 

From that small spire, just caught 
By the bright ray, that church among the rest 
By one of old distinguished as The Bride,t 

* Giotto. 


t Santa Maria Novella. For its grace and beauty it was called 
by Michael Angelo ‘ La Sposa.’ 


* 


s = : vf ~ : 
bs 


+ 
2 


118 ITALY. 


* 


Let us in thought pursue (what can we better?) 

Those who assembled there at matin-time ;* _ 

Who, when Vice revelled, and along the street 

Tables were set, what time the bearer’s bell — 

Rang to demand the dead at every door, 

Came out into the meadows; and, awhile 

Wandering in idleness, but not in folly, 

Sat down in the high grass and in the shade 

Of many a tree sun-proof—day after day, 

When all was still and nothing to be heard 

But the cicala’s voice among the olives, 

Relating in a ring, to banish care, 

Their hundred tales. Round the green hill they 
went, | . 

Round underneath—first to a splendid house, 

Gherardi, as an old tradition runs, 

That on the left, just rising from the vale ; — 

A place for luxury—the painted rooms, 

The open galleries and middle court 

Not unprepared, fragrant and gay with flowers. 

Then westward to another, nobler yet ; | 


That on the right, now known as the Palmieri, 


- * In the year of the great plague. See the Decameron. 


as Fe % ol f =: '* get — Shy ah 
7 : aa. 


s 
‘ ee ve, og 
oe . 


ITALY. -* 119 


Where Art with Nature vied—a paradise, 
With verdurous walls, and many a trellissed walk 
All rose and jasmine, many a twilight glade 
Crossed by the deer. Then to the Ladies’ Vale ; 
And the clear lake, that as by magic seemed 
To lift up to the surface every stone 
Of lustre there, and the diminutive fish 
Innumerable, dropt with crimson and gold, 
Now motionless, now glancing to the sun. 

Who has not dwelt on their voluptuous day ? 
The morning-banquet by the fountain side, 
While the small birds rejoiced on every bough ; 
The dance that followed, and the noon-tide slumber ; 
Then the tales told in turn, as round they lay 


On carpets, the fresh waters murmuring ; 


. And the short interval of pleasant talk 


Till supper-time, when many a syren voice 
Sung down the stars; and, as they left the sky, 
The torches, planted in the sparkling grass, 
And every where among the glowing flowers, 
Burnt bright and brighter. 


He,* whose dream it was, 


* Boccaccio. 


re 


120, . ITALY. 


(It was no more) sleeps in a neighbouring vale ; 

Sleeps in the church, where, in his ear I ween, 

The friar poured out his wondrous catalogue ;*— 

A ray, imprimis, of the star that shone 

To the wise men ; a phial-ful of sounds, 

The musical chimes of the great bells that hip” 

In Solomon’s temple ; and, though last not least, 

A feather from the angel Gabriel’s wing, 

Dropt in the Virgin’s chamber. That dark ridge, _ 

Stretching south-east, conceals it from my sight ; 

Not so his lowly roof and scanty farm, 

His copse and rill, if yet a trace be left, 

Who lived in Val di Pesa, suffering long 

Want and neglect and (far, far worse) reproach, 

With calm, unclouded mind.t| The glimmering -* 
tower x 

On the grey rock beneath, his land-mark once, 2 

Now serves for ours, and points out where he ate 

His bread with cheerfulness. Who sees him not 

(Tis his own sketch—he drew it from himself) 

Laden with cages from his shoulder slung, 


And sallying forth, while yet the morn is grey, 


* Decameron, vi. 10. Tt Macchiavel. 
hy 7 


” 


ITALY. % 121 


To catch a thrush on every lime-twig there ; 
Or in the wood among his wood- cutters ; | 
Or in the tavern by ‘the  highway- side ’ 
At tric-trac- with the miller: or at night, . 
Doffing his rustic suit, and, duly clad, 

Entering his closet, and, among his books, 
Among the ereat of every age and clime, ° 

A numerous court, turning to whom he pleased, 
Questioning each why he did-this or that, 

And learning how-to overcome thie fear 

Of poverty and death 1— 





Nearer we hail 
Thy sunny slope, Arcetri, sung of old 
For its green wine ; dearer to me, to most, 
As dwelt on by that great astronomer, 
Seven years a prisoner at the city-gate, 
* Let in but in his grave-clothes. Sacred be 
"His villa (justly was it called the Gem!) 
Sacred the lawn, where many a cypress threw 
Its length of shadow, while he watched the stars! 
Sacred the vineyard, where, while. yet his sight 
Glimmered, at blush of morn he dressed his vines, 
Chanting aloud in gaiety of heart — 
Some verse of Ariosto. There, unseen, 


In manly beauty Milton stood before him, 


ie ITALY. © 


boa Gazing with reverend awe—Milton, his guest, 
Just then come forth, all life and enterprise ; 
He in his old age ‘and extremity, 

Blind) at noon-day exploring with his staff; 
His eyes upturned as to the golden sun, 

His eye-balls idly rolling. Little then 





Did Galileo think whom he received ; 
. That in his hand he held the hand of one 
Who could requite him—who would spread his 
name — 
O’er lands and seas—great as hiniself, nay greater ; 
Milton as little that in him he saw, | 
As in a glass, what he himself should be, 
Destined so soon to fall on evil days. 
And evil tongues—so soon, alas, to live 3 
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, . 
And solitude. Gea? otis 
Well pleased, could we pursue 
The Arno, from his birth-place in the clouds, 
So near the yellow Tiber’s—springing up . 
From his four fountains on the Appenine, 
That mountain-ridge a sea-mark to the ships 
Sailing on either sea. Downward he runs, 


Scattering fresh verdure thro’ the desolate wild, 


+ 


ITALY. 193 


Down by the City of Hermits,* and the woods 
That only echo to the choral hymn ; 

Then through these gardens to the Tuscan sea, 
Reflecting castles, convents, villages, * 

And those great rivals in an elder day, 

Florence and Pisa, who have given him fame, 
Fame everlasting, but who stained so oft 

His troubled waters. Oft, alas, were seen, 

When flight, pursuit, and hideous rout were there, 


Hands, clad in gloves of steel, held up imploring ; 


‘The man, the hero, on his foaming steed # 


Borne underneath, already in the realms 
Of darkness. 
Bring respite. Oft,-as that great artist saw, 





Nor did night or burning noon 


Whose pencil had a voice, the cry “To arms!” 
And the shrill trumpet, hurried up the bank 
Those who had stolen an hour to breast the tide, 
And wash from their unharnessed limbs the blood 
And sweat of battle. Sudden was the rush,t 
Violent the tumult ; for, already in sight, 

Nearer and nearer yet the danger drew ; 


Each every sinew straiing, every nerve, 


‘* I Sagro Eremo. _ + Michael Angelo. 
t A description of the Cartoon of Pisa. 





Each snatching ip; and  girding, buckling on 

Morion and greave and shict of twisted mail, 

As for his life—no more perchance to tas 

Arno, the grateful freshness of thy glades, is 

Thy waters—where, exulting, he hadsfelt 

A swimmer’s transport, there, alas, to float 

And welter. — 

Nor between the gusts of war, 

When flocks were feeding, and the shepherd’s pipe 

Gladdened the valley, when, but not unarmed, 

The sower came forth, and following him that 
ploughed, — | | 

Threw in the seed—did thy indignant waves 

Escape pollution. Sullen was the splash; 

Heavy and swift the plunge, when they received 

The key that just had grated on the ear 

Of Ugolino, ever closing up 

That dismal dungeon henceforth to be named 

The Tower of Famine. Once, indeed, ’twas thine, 

When many a winter-flood, thy tributary, 

Was thro’ its rocky glen rushing, resounding, — 

And thou wert in thy might, to save, restore 

A charge most precious. ‘To the nearest ford, 

Hastening, a horseman from Arezzo came, 


oa ‘ oa i 

ae at Teg 125 
Careless, impatient of delay, a babe 
Surge basket to the knotty staff © 
That lay athwart his saddle-bow. He spurs, 
He enters ; and his horse alarmed, perplexed, 
Halts in thé midst. Great is the stir, the strife ; 
And lo,‘an atom on that dangerous sea, 
The babe. is floating ! Fast and far he flies ; 
Now tempest-rocked, now) whirling round and 

round, | . ) 

But not to perish. By thy willing waves 
Borne to the shore, among the bulrushes 
The ark has rested ; and unhurt, secure, 
_ As on his mother’s breast, he sleeps within, 
All peace! or never had the nations heard 
That voice so sweet, which still enchants, inspires ; 
That voice, which sung of love, of liberty. 
Petrarch lay there! And such the images 
That here spring up for ever, in the young 
Kindling poetic fire! Such they that came 
And clustered round our Milton, when at eve 
Reclined beside thee, Arno; when at eve, 
Led on by thee, he wandered with delight, 
Framing Ovidian verse, and thro’ thy groves 


Gathering wild myrtle. Such the poet’s dreams ; 


e 


126 ITALY. * 
Yet not such only. For look round and say, 
Where is the ground that did not drink warm 

blood, | Hon ae 
The echo that had learned not to articulate 
The cry of murder? Fatal was the day* 
To Florence, when (twas in a narrow street 
North of that temple, where the truly great 
Sleep, not unhonoured, not unvisited ; . 
That temple sacred to the Holy Cross— 
There is the house—that house of the Donati,. 
Towerless, and left long since, but to the last 
Braving assault—all rugged, all embossed 
Below, and still distinguished by the rings 
Of brass, that held in war and festival-time 
Their family standards) fatal was the day 
To Florence, when, at morn, at the ninth hour, 
A noble dame in weeds of widowhood, 
Weeds by so many to be worn so soon, 
Stood at her door ; and, like a sorceress, flung 
Her dazzling spell. 

Subtle she was, and rich, 

Rich in a hidden pear] of heavenly light, 
Her daughter’s beauty ; and too well she knew 


¥* See Note. 


* 

. ITALY. — : 127 

is 
Its virtue! Patiently she stood and watched ; 
Nor stood alone—but spoke not. In her breast 
Her purpose lay ; and, as a youth passed by, 
Clad for the nuptial rite, she smiled and said, 
Lifting a corner of the maiden’s veil, 
“¢ This had 1 treasured up in secret for thee. 
This hast thou lost !” He gazed and was undone! 
Forgetting—not forgot—he broke the bond, 
And paid the penalty, losing his life 
At the bridge-foot ; and hence a world of woe ! 
Vengeance for vengeance crying, blood for blood ; 
No intermission! Law, that slumbers not, 
And, like the angel with the flaming sword, 
Sits over all, at once chastising, healing, 
Himself the avenger, went.; and every street 
Ran red with mutual slaughter—-though sometimes 
The young forgot the lesson they had learnt, 
And loved when they should hate—like thee, 

_ Imelda, . 

Thee and thy Paolo. When last ye met 
In that still hour (the heat, the glare was gone, 
Not so. the splendour—through the cedar-grove 
A radiance streamed like a consuming fire, 


As though the glorious orb, in its descent, 


« * 


128 ITALY: 


Had come and rested there) when last ye met, 
And those relentless brothers dragged him forth, 
It had been well, hadst thou slept on, Imelda, 
Nor from thy trance of fear awaked, as night 
Fell on that fatal spot, to wish thee dead, 

To track him by his blood, to search, to find, 
Then fling thee down to catch a word, a look, - 
A sigh, if yet thou couldst (alas, thou couldst not) 
And die, unseen, unthought of—from the wound 
Sucking the poison.*—Yet, when slavery came, 
Worse followed. Genius, valour left the land, 
Indignant—all that had from age to age 
Adorned, ennobled ; and headlong they fell, 
Tyrant and‘slave. or deeds of violence, 

Done in broad day, and more than half redeemed 
By many a great and generous sacrifice 

Of self to others, came the unpledged bowl, 

The stab of the stiletto. Gliding by 

Unnoticed, in slouched hat and muffling cloak, 
That just discovered, Caravaggio-like, 

A swarthy cheek, black brow, and eye of flame, | 
The bravo stole, and o’er the shoulder plunged 


To the heart’s core, or from beneath the ribs 


* See Note. 


ITALY. 129 


Slanting (a surer path, as some averred) 

Struck upward—then slunk off, or, if pursued, » 
Made for the sanctuary, and there along 

_ The glimmering aisle among the worshippers 
Wandered with restless step and jealous look, 
Dropping thick blood. Misnamed to lull alarm, 
In every palace was the laboratory, 

Where he within brewed poisons swift and slow, 
That scatter’d terror ’til all things seem’d poisonous, 
And brave men trembled if a hand held out 

A nosegay or a letter; while the great 

Drank only from the Venice-glass, that broke, 
That shivered, scattering round it as in scorn, 
If aught malignant, aught of thine was there, 
Cruel Tophana ; and pawned provinces 

For that miraculous gem, the gem that gave 

A sign infallible of coming ill, 

That clouded though the vehicle of death 

Were an invisible perfume. Happy then 

The guest to whom at sleeping-time ’twas said, 
But in an under voice (a lady’s page 

Speaks in no louder) “Pass not on. That door 
Leads to another which awaits thy coming, 


One in the floor—now left, alas, unlocked. 


ba “- . i al 
130 ITALY. 


No eye detects it—lying under foot, 

Just as thou enterest, at the threshold-stone ; 
Ready to fall and plunge thee into night — 

And long oblivion !”———In that evil hour 
Where lurked not danger? Thro’ the fairy-land, 





No seat of pleasure glittering half-way down, | 

No hunting place—but with some damning spot 

That will not be washed out! There, at Caiano, 

Where, when the hawks were mewed and evening 
came, | 

Pulci would set the table in a roar 

With his wild lay—there, where the sun descends, 

And hill and dale are lost, veiled with his beams, 

The fair Venitian* died, she and her lord-— 

Died of a posset drugged by him who sat 

And saw them suffer, flinging back the charge ; 

The murderer on the murdered. Sobs of grief,t 

Sounds inarticulate—suddenly stopt, 

And followed by a struggle and a gasp, 

A gasp in death, are heard yet in Cerreto, 

Along the marble halls and staircases, 

Nightly at twelve ; and, at the self-same hour, 


Shrieks, such as penetrate the inmost soul, 


* Bianca Capello. { See Note. 


r i : ; 
4 ‘ é 


*" ie. 
ITALY. 131 


Such as awake the innocent babe to long, 

Long wailing, echo through the emptiness 

Of that old den far up among the hills, . 
Frowning on him who comes from Pietra-Mala: 
In them, alas, within five days and less, 

Two unsuspecting victims, passing fair, 
“Welcomed with kisses, and slain cruelly, 

One with the knife, one with the fatal noose. 

But lo, the sun is setting ; earth and sky 

One blaze of glory—What we saw but now, 

As though it were not, though it had not been ! 
He lingers yet ; and, lessening to a point, 
Shines like the eye of Heaven—then withdraws ; 
And from the zenith to the utmost skirts 

All is celestial red! The hour is come, 

When they that sail along the distant seas, 
Languish for home ; and they that in the morn 
Said to sweet friends “ farewell,” melt as at parting ; 
When, just gone forth, the pilgrim, if he hears, 
As now we hear it—echoing round the hill 

The bell that seems to mourn the dying day, 
Slackens his pace and sighs, and those he loved 
Loves more than ever. But who feels it not ? 


And well may we, for we are far away. 


| i 
199, 'ob ITALY. en 
‘os : 
be Be ay gh 
9 “e | : % 
x: r 
THE PILGRIM. avd; 


be It was an hour of universal joy. 
eo Che lark was up and at the gate of hates 








‘Sing wing, as sure to enter when he came; 

» butterfly was basking in my path, 
radiant wings unfolded. From below 

| he bell of prayer rose slowly, plaintively ; 





_ And odours, such as welcome in the day, 
Such as salute the early traveller, 
_ And come and go, each sweeter than the last, 
: Were rising. Hill and valley breathed delight ; 
And not a living thing but blessed the hour ! 
tee Naaievery bush and brake there was a voice 
:° ésponsive !—From the Thrasymene, that now. 
‘Slept i in the sun, a lake of molten gold, 


And from the shore that once, when armies met, 







R eked to and fro unfelt, so tertible 


a se ‘he rage, the slaughter, I had turned away; 
‘The path, that led ee leading through a wood, 


q 


. 7. “ hy » . if ‘ 
ae . ee ; 4 q eS 
hess ds 19 . s ate 















w 
ae : 


133 


‘A fairy-wilderness of fruits and flowers, . 

And by a brook that, in the day of strife, e. 
Ran blood, but now runs amber—when a glade, 
Far, far within, sunned only at noon-day,. 
Suddenly opened. Many a bench was there, 
Each round its ancient elm; and many a track, 
Well known to them that from the highway loved 
Awhile to deviate. In the midst a cross 

Of mouldering stone as in a temple stood, 
Solemn, severe ; coeval with the trees 

That round it in majestic order rose ; 


And on the lowest step a Pilgrim knelt, 


_ In fervent prayer. He was the first I saw, 


(Save in the tumult of a midnight-masque, 
A revel where none cares to play his part, 
And they, that speak, at once dissolve the charm) 
The first in sober truth, no counterfeit ; 

And, when his orisons were duly paid, 

He rose, and we exchanged, as all are wont, 

A trayeller’s greeting.—Young, and of an age 
When youth is most attractive, when a light 
Plays round and round, reflected, while it lasts, 
From some attendant-spirit, that ere long 


(His charge relinquished with a sigh, a tear) 


. : 


em a, 


134 TRAY. ; .° | ¢ 


Wings his flight upward—with a look he won 


‘My favour ; and, the spell of silence broke, 


1 could not but continue—* Whence,” I asked, 


— Whence art thou ?”—*< From Mont’alto,” he 


replied, + 

“¢ My native village in the Apennines.” — 

“And whither, journeying ?’—“ To the - holy 
shrine 

Of Saint Antonio in the city of Padua. 


Perhaps, if thou hast ever gone so far, 


Thou wilt direct my course.” “ Most willingly ; 


But thou hast much to do, much to endure, 

Ere thou hast entered where the silver lamps 

Burn ever. Tell me—I would not transgress, 

Yet ask I must—what could have brought thee 
' forth, 

Nothing in act or thought to be atoned for 1” 

‘It was a vow I made in my distress. 

We were so blest, none were so blest as we, 

Till sickness came. First, as death-struck, I fell ; 

Then my beloved sister ; and ere long, 

Worn with continual watchings, night and day, 

Our saint-like mother. Worse and worse she’ grew ; 


And in my anguish, my despair, I vowed, © 


ain at al ie see | - poe ® © le — 


. i : * 
3 Pe 
. ITALY. - 135 
Sa | 3 
¥ = “ - 


That if she lived, if Heaven restored her to us, 





1 would forthwith, and in a pilgrim’s weeds, 

Visit that holy shrine. My vow was heard ; 

And therefore am Lcome.” ‘Thou hast done right ; 

And may those weeds, so reverenced of: old, 

Guard thee in danger!” “They are nothing worth. 

But they are worn in humble confidence ; 

Nor would | for the richest robe resign them, 

Wrought, as they were, by those I love so well, 

Lauretta and my sister ; theirs the task, 

But none to them, a pleasure, a delight, 

To ply their utmost skill, and send me forth 

As best became this service. Their last words, 

‘ Fare thee well, Carlo. We shall count the hours!’ 

Will not go from me.” “ Health and strength be 
thine 

In thy long travel! May no sunbeam strike ; 

No vapour cling and wither! May’st thou be, 

Sleeping, or waking, sacred and secure ! 

And, when again thou com’st, thy labour done, 

Joy be among ye! In that happy hour 

All will pour forth to bid thee welcome, Carlo; 

And there is one, or | am much deceived, 


One thou hast named, who will not be the last.” 


* 










“ Oh, she is true as truth itself can be ! be 
> But, ah, thou know’ st her not. Would that thou | 
couldst ! i a, Seem 
My steps I quicken vise a ‘hint of her 
For, though they take me further from her door, | 





ite & shall return the sooner.” 


yy A 
; 3 ‘4 

: ‘ we 

“ 

Ka 7, 





‘ihgos 








ITALY. 137 


AN INTERVIEW. 


Z | * 
-\ Pleasure, that comes unlooked-for, is thrice wel- 


rank 
# 


Tig (eaeOmMe 5 
‘ And, " it stir the heart, if aught be there, 
That may hereafter ina thoughtful hour 
Wake but a sigh, tis treasured up among 
‘The things most precious ; and the day it came, 
43 noted as a white day in our lives. 
"The sun was wheeling westward, and the cliffs 
And nodding woods, that éverlastingly 
* (Such the dominion of thy mighty voice, 
oF a voice, Velino, uttered in the mist) 
Hear thee and answer thee, wets left at length 


“Ebr others still as noon ; and on we strayed — 


i From wild to wilder, nothing hospitable - 





= - Offering igett—Arhen Luigi cried, 
“ Well, of a thousand tracks we chose the best YF 
_ And, turning round an oak, oracular once, 
7 10 


138 tae 





Had issued, many a ae an 
Peered forth, then housed again—the floor yet grey 


With ashes, and the sides, where roughest, hung 
~~ Loosely with locks of hair—I looked and saw 
What, seen in such an hour by Sancho Panza, — 
Had given his honest countenance a breadth, 
His cheeks a flush of pleasure and surprise, | 
Unknown before, had chained him to the spot, 
And thou, Sir Knight, hadst traversed hill and dale, 
Squire-less. Below and winding far away, 

A narrow glade unfolded, such as spring 

Broiders with flowers, and, when the moon is high, 
The hare delights to race in, scattering round 
The silvery dews. Cedar and cypress threw _ 
Singly their depth of shadow, checkering 

The greensward, and, what grew in frequent tufts, 
An underwood of myrtle, that by fits ) 
Sent up a gale of fragrance. Through the midst, 
Reflecting, as it ran, purple and gold, 

A rainbow’s splendour (somewhere in the east 


Rain-drops were falling fast) a rivulet 


aed Ls 
PAN an 
om * 139 





2 








yo; and on the bank 
e, if not of both, 
ia 


Sported as loth t 
Stood (in the eye 
Worth all the rest 
Well-laden, while wo mi : 
Drew from his ample pa niers, ranging round 


e) a sumpter-mule 


ials as in haste 


Viands and fruits on many a shining salver, 
And plunging in the cool translucent wave 
Flasks of delicious wine.—Anon a horn 

Blew, through the champain bidding to the feast, 
[ts jocund note to other ears addressed, 

Not ours ; and, slowly coming by a path, 

That, ere it issued from an ilex-grove, 

Was seen far inward, though along the glade 
Distinguished only by a fresher verdure, 
Peasants approached, one leading in a leash 
Beagles yet panting, with various game, 

In rich profusion slung, before, behind, 

Leveret and quail and pheasant. All announced 
The chase as over ; and ere long appeared, 
Their horses full of fire, champing the curb 

For the white foam was dry upon the flank, 
Two in close converse, each in each delighting, 
Their plumage waving as instinct with life ; 

A lady young and graceful, and a youth, © 


sheio | | ITALY. 


Yet younger, bearing on a falconer’s glove, 


- = 


As in the golden, the romanti¢ time, 
His falcon hooded. . Like some spirit of air, 
Or fairy-vision, such as feigned of old, 
The lady, while her courser pawed the eround, 
Alighted ; and her beauty, as she trod 
The enamelled bank, bruising nor herb nor flower, 
That place illumined. Ah, who should she be, 
And with her brother, as when last we met, 
(When the first lark had sung ere half was said, 
And as she stood, bidding adieu, her voice, 
So sweet it was, recalled me like a spell) 
Who but Angelica ?—That day we gave 
To pleasure, and, unconscious of their flight, 
Another and another ; hers a home 
Dropt from the sky amid the wild and rude, 
Loretto-like : where all was as a dream, 
A dream spun out of some Arabian tale 
Read or related in a roseate bower, 
Some balmy eve. The rising moon we hailed, 
Duly, devoutly, from a vestibule 
Of many an arch, o’er-wrought and lavishly 
With many a labyrinth of sylphs and flowers, 


When Raphael and his school from Florence came, 
ss 


ITALY. i 
Filling the land with splendour—nor less oft 
- Watched her, declining, from a silent dell, 


Not silent once, what time in rivalry 


Tasso, Guarini, waved their wizard-wands, 
Peopling the groves from Arcady, and lo, 

Fair forms appeared, murmuring melodious verse, 
—Then, in their day, a sylvan theatre, . 

Mossy the seats, the stage a verdurous floor, 

The scenery rock and shrub-wood, Nature’s own ; 
Nature the architect. 


142 ITALY: ¢ 


ROME. 


~Tamin Rome! Oft as the morning ray 

Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry, 

Whence this excess of joy? What has befallen me ? 
And from within a thrilling voice replies, 

Thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts 
Rush on my mind, a thousand images ; 

And J spring up as girt to run a race! 

Thou art in Rome! the city that so long 
Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world ; 
The mighty vision that the prophets saw, 

And trembled ; that from nothing, from the least, 
The lowliest village (what but here and there 
A reed-roofed cabin by a river side?) 
Grew into every thing; and, year by year, 
Patiently, fearlessly, working her way 
O’er brook and field, o’er continent and sea, 
Not like the merchant with his merchandize, 
Or traveller with staff and scrip exploring, 
But hand to hand, and foot to foot, rough hosts, 
3 
le 


‘he > — se 


gli 4 i La 
: ITALY. 143 


Through nations numberless in battle array, 
Each behind each, each, when the other fell, 
Up and in arms, at length subdued them all. 

Thou art in Rome! the city where the Gauls, 
Entering at sun-rise through her open gates, 
And, through her streets silent and desolate, 
Marching to slay, thought they saw Gods, not men ; 
The city, that, by temperance, fortitude, 
‘And love of glory, towered above the clouds, 
Then fell—but, falling, kept the highest seat, 
_And in her loneliness, her pomp of woe, 
Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild, 
Still o’er the mind maintains, from age to age, 
Her empire undiminished. There, as though 
Grandeur attracted grandeur, are beheld 
All things that strike, ennoble—from the depths» 
Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece, 
Her groves, her temples—all things that inspire 
' Wonder, delight! Who would not say the forms 
Most perfect, most divine, had by consent 
Flocked thither to abide eternally, 
Within those sient chambers where they dwell 
In happy intercourse q 

Te And | am there! 
"Sts 
ee oh 


ae a) 
ri 
me. ' ITALY. 


Ah, little thought 1, when in school I sate, 
A school-boy on his bench, at early dawn ~ 
Glowing with Roman story, I should live 
To tread the Appian, once an avenue 
Of monuments most glorious, palaces, 
Their doors sealed up and silent-as the night, 
The dwellings of the illustrious dead—to turn 
Toward Tibur, and, beyond the city-gate, 
Pour out my unpremeditated verse, . 
Where on his mule I might have met so oft 
Horace himself—or climb the Palatine, 
Dreaming of old Evander and his guest, 
Dreaming and lost on that proud eminence, 
Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found 
Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood 
Engendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge 
One in his madness ;*-and inscribe my name, 
My name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf, 
* That shoots and spreads within those very walls 
_ Where Virgil read-aloud his tale divine, 
Where his voice faltered, and a mother wept 
Tears of delight ! | 3 
But what the narrow space ~~ 


* Nero. 


ITALY. 145 


Just underneath? In many a heap the ground 


_Heaves, as though ruin in a frantic mood 


al 


Had done his utmost.. Here and there appears, | 
As left to show his handy-work, not ours, ae 
An idle column, a half-buried arch, 
A wall of some great temple. - It was once, 
And long, the centre of their universe, — 
The Forum—whence a mandate, eagle-winged, 
Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend 
Slowly. At every step much may be lost. 
The very dust we tread stirs as with life ; 
And not a breath but from the ground sends up 
Something of human grandeur. ° 
We are come, 
Are now where once the mightiest spirits met 
In terrible conflict ; this, while Rome was free, 
The noblest theatre on this side Heaven! __ 
Here the first Brutus stood, when o’er the corse 
Of her so chaste all mourned, and from his cloud 
Burst like a God. Here, holding up the knife 
That ran with blood, the blood of his own child, 
Virginius called down vengeance. But whence 
~ spoke 
They who harangued the people—turning now 


—_ 


146 , TTALY: 


To the twelve tables, now with lifted hands 


To the Capitoline Jove, whose fulgent shape 


- In the unclouded azure shone far off, 


And to the shepherd on the Alban mount 

Seemed like a star new-risen? Where were ranged 
In rough array as on their element, , 

The beaks of those old gallies, destined still* 

To brave the brunt-of war—at last to know - 

A calm far worse, a silence as in death ? 


All spiritless ; from that disastrous hour 


“When he, the bravest; gentlest of them all,t 


Scorning the chains he’ could not hope to break, 
Fell on his sword ! 

Along the Sacred Way 
Hither the triumph came, and, winding round 
With acclamation, and the martial clang — 
Of instruments, and cars laden with spoil, 


Stopt at the sacred stair that then appeared, 


"Then through the darkness broke, ample, star- 


bright, ; 
As though it led to heaven. ’T'was night ; but now 
A thousand torches, turning night to day, 


Blazed, and the victor, springing from his seat, 


* The Rostra. { Marcus Junius Brutus. 


PPALY: 147 


_ Went up, and, kneeling as in fervent prayer, 
Entered the Capitol. But what are they: 


2 ts! 
3 of: 


» Who at the foot withdraw, a mournful train 
In fetters? And who, yet incredulous, 
Now gazing wildly round, now on his sons, 
On those so young, well pleased with all they see, 
Staggers along, the last? They are the fallen, ips 
Those who were spared to grace the chariot-wheels; 


And there they parted, where the road divides, 
The victor and the vanquished—there withdrew; — 
He to the festal board, and they to die. ai Be 

Well might the great, the mighty of the world, 
They who were wont to fare deliciously, 

And war but for.a kingdom more or less, 

Shrink back, nor from their thrones endure to look, 
To think that way! Well might they in their state 
Humble themselves, and kneel and supplicate 

To be delivered from a dream like this! 

Here Cincinnatus passed, his plough the while 
Left in the furrow ; and how many more, | 
Whose laurels fade not, who still walk the earth, 
Consuls, dictators, still in curule pomp 
Sit and decide ; and, as of old in Rome, 


Name but their names, set every heart on fire! 


os 


lig * ITALY. 
PP 
Here, in his bonds, he whom the phalanx saved 
not,* 


The last on Philip’s throne, and the Numidian,t 


& So soon to say, stript of his cumbrous robe, 
_ Stript to the skin, and in his nakedness 
Thrust underground, “ How cold this bath of 


~ yours!” 
And thy proud queen, Palmyra, through the seat 
Pursued, o’ertaken on her dromedary ; 
Whose temples, palaces, a wondrous dream 
That passes not away, for many a league 
Illumine yet the desert. Some invoked 
Death, and escaped ; the Egyptian, when her asp 
Came from his covert under the green leaf ;§ 
And Hannibal himself; and she who said, 
Taking the fatal cup between her hands,|| 
“ Tell him I would it had come yesterday ; 


- For then it had not. been his nuptial gift.” — 


Now all is changed ; and here, as in the wild, 
The day is silent, dreary as the night ; 
None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd, 


oF | Oe 


as. * Perseus. - = t Jugurtha. t Zenvbia. 
Sm, » § Cleopatra. || Sophonisba. 





; c ran =... 149 
7 oe | 
Sa ge alike ; or they that would explore, 


Discuss, and learnedly ; or they that come, 

(And there are many who have crossed the earth,) 
That they may give the hours to meditation, 
And wander, often saying to themselves, — 
“This was‘the Roman Forum !” ‘ig 











150. 





« Whence this delay?” « Along the crowded street 
A funeral comes, and with unusual pomp.” 

So 1 withdrew a little, and stood still, 

While it went by. “She died as she deserved,” 
Said an Abaté, gathering up his cloak, : 
And with a shrug retreating as the tide _ 
‘Flowed more and more. “But she was beautiful !” 
Replied a soldier of the Pontiff’s guard. 

«¢ And innocent as beautiful !” exclaimed 

A matron sitting in her stall, hung round 

With garlands, holy pictures, and what not. 

Her Alban grapes and Tusculan figs displayed 

In rich profusion. From her heart she spoke ; 
And 1 accosted her to hear her story. 

‘¢' The stab,” she cried, ‘‘ was given in jealousy ; 
But never fled a purer spirit to heaven, * 

As thou wilt say, or much my mind misleads, 
When thou hast seen her face. Last night at dusk, 
When on her way from vespers—none were near, 


al 


a ee 
. “raty. 


a 
t 


None save her sérving-boy, who knelt and wept, 
But what could’tears avail him when she fell— 
Last night at dusk, the clock then striking nine, 

- Just . fountain—that before the church, 
The « 


Alas, I knew her from her earliest youth, 





wurch she always used, St. ‘Isidore’s— 


That excellent lady. Ever would she say, 

Good even, as she passed, and with a voice 
Gentle-as theirs in heaven!” But now by fits 

A dull and dismal noise assailed the ear, 

A wail, a chant, louder and louder yet ; 

And now a strange fantastic troop appeared ! | 
Thronging they came, as from the shades below ; 
All of a. ghostly white! “Oh say,” I cried, 

*¢ Do not the living here bury the dead ? 

Do spirits come and fetch them ? ‘What are these, 
That seem not of this: world, and mock the day ; 


Each with a burning taper in his hand ?” a we 


2 

> ir’ # 
by tae é - 
: 


‘It is an ancient brotherhood thou seest: | 
Such their apparel. . Through the long, long line, 
Look where thou wilt, no likeness of a man ; 

The living masked, the dead alone uncovered. 

But mark”—And, lying on her funeral-couch, 
Like one asleep, her eyes closed, her hands 


<_< * 


ail 


a ash a i = = 


dye 


me am Py 





152” ITALY. 


Folded together on her modest breast, - 






As for a birth-day feast! But breathes she not? 
A glow is on her cheek—and her-lips moye ! - 
And now a smile is there—how heavenly sweet! — as 
“Oh no!” replied the dame, wiping her tears, 
But with an accent less of grief than anger, — RS 
«No, she will never, never wake again!” 
Death, when we: meet the spectre in our walks, | 
As we did yesterday: and shall to-morrow, 
Soon grows familiar, like most other things, 
Seen, not observed ; but in a foreign clime, 
Changing his shape to something new and strange, 
(And through the world he changes as in sport, 
Affect he greatness or humility,) : » tee 
Knocks at the heart. His form and fashion here 


To me, I do confess, reflect a gloom, 


A sadness round ; yet.one 1 would not lose ; 


Being in unison with all things else 

In this, this land.of shadows, where we live . - 

More in past time than present, whete the ground, « 
League beyond league, like one great cemetery, 


Is covered o’er with mouldering monuments; _ 


* > 


Pe ead a < 
8 ITALY. - ‘ 153 
And, let the’living wander where they will, | 
_ They cannot leave the footsteps of the dead. 


Oft, where the burial-rite follows so fast 






agony, oft coming, nor from far, 

ust a fond father meet his darling child, 

(Him who at parting climbed his knees and clung,) 
Clay-cold and wan, and to the bearers cry, © 

« Stand, I conjure ye!” 
Seen thus destitute, 
What are the greatest? They must speak beyond 
A thousand homilies. When Raphael went, 

His heavenly face the mirror of his mind, 

His mind a temple for all lovely things 

To flock to and inhabit—when he went, 

Wrapt in his sable cloak, the cloak he wore, 

To sleep beneath the venerable dome,* 

By those attended, who in life had loved, 

Had worshipped, following in his steps to fame, 
("T'was on an April day, when nature smiles,) 

All Rome was there. But, ere the march began, 
Ere to receive their charge the bearers came, 
Who had not sought him? And when all beheld 
Him, where he lay, how changed from yesterday ! 


* The Pantheon. 


611 


: 154 “ * —. 

“Bim i in that hour cut off, and at his head 
His] last great work ; when, entering in, they looked 
Now on the dead, then on that ‘master-piece, 
Now on his face, lifeless and colourless, On 
Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed, 
And would live on for ages—all were moved ; 


And sighs burst forth, and loudest lamentations. 


TA, me 155 * i 


NATIONAL PREJUDICES. 


“Another assassination! This venerable city,” 
I exclaimed, ‘‘ what is it, but as it began, a nest of 
robbers and murderers? We must away at sun- 
rise, Luigi.”—But before sun-rise I had reflected a 
little, and in the soberest prose. My indignation 
was gone; and, when Luigi undrew my, curtain, . 
erying, “Up, signor, up! The horses are at the 
door.” “ Luigi,” I replied, “if thou lovest me, draw 
the curtain.”* 

It would lessen very much the severity with 
which men judge of each other, if they would but 
trace effects to their causes, and observe the pro- 
gress of things in the moral as accurately as in the 
physical world. When we condemn millions in 
the mass as vindictive and sanguinary, we should 
remember that, wherever justice is ill-administered, 
the injured will redress themselves. Robbery pro- 
vokes to robbery; murder to assassination.. Re- 


*A dialogue, which is said to have passed many years ago at 
Lyons, (Mem. de Grammont, I. 3.) and which may still be heard in 
almost every hotellerie at day-break. 


156 ITALY. 


sentments become hereditary ; and what began in 
disorder, ends as if all hell had broke loose. 

Laws create a habit of self-constraint, not only 
by the influence of fear, but by regulating in its ex- 


ercise the passion of revenge. If they overawe the © 


bad by the prospect of a punishment certain and 
well-defined, they console the injured by the inflic- 


tion of that punishment; and, as the infliction is a 


‘public act, it excites and entails no enmity. The 


laws are offended; and the community for its own 
sake pursues and overtakes the offender; often 
without the concurrence of the sufferer, sometimes 
against his wishes. 

Now those who were not born, like ourselves, to 
such advantages, we should surely rather pity than 
hate ; and, when at length they venture to turn 
against their rulers,* we should lament, not wonder 
at their excesses ; remembering that nations are na- 


turally patient and long suffering, and seldom rise 


in rebellion till they. are so degraded by a bad - 


*As the descendants of an illustrious people have lately done. Can 
it be believed that there are many among us, who, from a desire to be 
thought superior to common-place sentiments and vulgar feelings, 
affect an indifference to their cause? ‘If the Greeks,’’ they say, 
‘‘ had the probity of other nations—but they are false to a proverb !” 
And is not falsehood the characteristic of slaves? Man is the crea- 
ture of circumstances. Fyee he has the qualities of a freeman ; en- 
slaved those of a slave. 


oa 


oP 4 157 


government as to be almost incapable of a good 


¥ 


one. ‘ 

“Hate them, perhaps,” you may say, “‘ we should 

ot; but despise them we must, if enslaved, like 

the people of Rome, in mind as well as body; if 
their religion be a gross and barbarous superstition,” 
—I respect knowledge; but I do not despise igno- 
rance. They think only as their fathers thought, 
worship as they worshipped. They do no more; 
and, if ours had not burst their bondage, braving 
imprisonment and death, might not we at this very 
moment have been exhibiting, in our streets and 
our churches, the same. Bee AeStOnS; ceremonials, 
and mortifications ? 

Nor should we require from those who are in an 
earlier stage of society, what belongs to a later. 
They are only where we once were; and why hold 
them in derision? It is their business to cultivate 
the inferior arts before they think of the more re- 
fined; and in many of the last what are we as a 
nation, when compared to others that have passed 
away ? Unfortunately it is too much the practice 
of governments to nurse and keep alive in the go- 
verned their national prejudices. It withdraws their 
attention from what is passing at home, and makes 
them better tools in the hands of ambition. Hence 


* os 
bots " ° “ Be 
‘ 


a. 
158 ITALY. 


next-door neighbours are held up tous from our 
childhood as natural enemies ; and we are urged 
. like curs to worry each other.* 

“In like manner we should learn to be just to indi- 
viduals. Who can say, “In such circumstances I 
should have done otherwise ?” Who, did he but 
reflect 


/ mé strange concurrences, we are led astray ; 






by what slow gradations, often by how 


with how niuch reluctance, how much agony, how 
many efforts to escape, how many dink sanaute: 


_ how many sighs, how many tears— Who did he but 


reflect for a moment, would have the heart to cast 


* 2a stone? Fortunately these things are known to 


Hit, from whom. no ae are hidden ; and let 


us rest in the assurance tht his judgments are not 


i 


; as ours are. 


*Candour, generosity, how rare are they in the world ; and how 
much is to be deplored the want of them! When a: minister in our 
parliament consents at last to a measure which, for many reasons 
perhaps existing no longer, he had before refused to adopt, there should 
be no exultation as over the fallen, no taunt, no jeer. How often 
may the resistance be continued lest an enemy should triumph, and 
the result of conviction be received as a symptom of fears.) ¢ 


o® 


lrg ay 
ITALY. 159 


THE CAMPAGNA OF’ ROME. 


Have none appeared as tillers of the ground, 
None since they went, as though it still were theirs, 
And they might come and claim their own again ? q 
Was the last plough a Roman’s? From this seat,* 
Sacred for ages, whence, as Virgil sings, ne ; 4 
The Queen of Heaven, alighting from the sky, eae . 
Looked down and saw the armies in array,} 


* 
* 7 


Let us contemplate ; and, where dreams from Jc ove 
‘Descended on the sleeper; where perhaps 
Some inspirations may be lingering still, ‘ 
Some glimmerings of the future or the past, 
Let us await their influence ; silently 

Revolving, as we rest on the green turf, 

The changes from that hour, when he from Troy 
Went up the Tiber ; when refulgent shields, 

No strangers to the iron hail of war, 

Streamed far and wide, and dashing oars were heard 


Among those woods where Silvia’s stag was lying, 


* See Note. { Aneid, xii. 134. 


160 ITALY. 


His antlers gay with flowers ; among those woods 
Where, by the moon that saw and yet withdrew not, 
Two were so soon to wander and be slain, ‘ 
Two lovely in their lives, nor in their death " 
Divided. 

| Then, and hence to be discerned, 4, 
How many realms, pastoral and warlike, lay 
Along this plain, each with its schemes of power, 
Its little rivalships! What various turns 
Of fortune there! what moving accidents 
From ambuscade and open violence! 
Mingling, the sounds came up; and hence how oft 
We might have caught among the trees below, 
Glittering with helm and shield, the men of Tibur ;* 
Or in Greek vesture, Greek their origin, 
Some embassy ascending to Preeneste ;} 
How oft descried, without thy gates, Aricia,t 
Entering the solemn grove for sacrifice, | 
Senate and people !—Each a busy hive, . 
Glowing with life ! 
But all ere long are lost 
In one. We look, and where the-river rolls 
Southward its shining labyrinth, in her strength 


* Tivoli. t Palestrina. t La Riccia. 
aa ? 


ee eer deals I “a. 


ITALY. 16] 


_ A city, girt with battlements and towers, 

_ On seven small hills is rising. Round about, 

t At rural work the citizens are seen, ¥: 
None unemployed ; the noblest of them all : 
Binding their sheaves or on their threshing- -floors, 

* As though they had not conquered. Every where 
Some trace of valour or heroic toil ! 

Here is the sacred field of the Horatii. 

There are the Quintian meadows. Here the hill* 

How holy, where a generous people, twice, 

Twice going forth, in terrible anger sate 

Armed ; and, their wrongs redressed, at once gave 

way, | 

Helmet and shield, and sword and spear thrown 

down, 

And-every hand uplifted, every heart , 

Poured out in thanks to heaven. 
Once again 
We look ; and lo, the sea is white with sails 
Innumerable, wafting to the shore 
Treasures untold ; the vale, the promontories, 
A dream of glory ; temples, palaces, 


Called up as by enchantment ; aqueducts 


f ® 
* Mons Sacer. Fe 


162 ITALY. 


Among the groves and glades rolling along — 
Rivers, on many an arch high over-head ; 

And in the centre, like a burning sun, 

The imperial city! ‘They have now subdued 
All nations. But where they who led them forth— 
Who, when at length released by victory, 
(Buckler and spear hung up—but not to rust,) 
Held poverty no evil, no reproach, 

Living on little with a cheerful mind,— 

The Decii, the Fabricii? Where the spade, 
And reaping hook, among their household things 
Duly transmitted? In the hands of men 

Made captive ; while the master and his guests, 
Reclining, quaff in gold, and roses swim, 
Summer and winter, through the circling year, 
On their Falernian—in the hands of men 
Dragged into slavery, with how many more 
Spared but to die, a public spectacle, | 

In combat with each other, and required 

To fall with grace, with dignity—to sink, 

While life is gushing, and the plaudits ring 
Faint and yet fainter on their failing ear, 

As models for the sculptor.—— But their days, 
‘Their hours are numbered. Hark, a yell, a shriek, 


*, 
_— 
* 


ITALY. 163 


A barbarous outcry, loud and louder yet, 

That echoes from the mountains to the sea! 

And mark, beneath us, like a bursting cloud, 

The battle moving onward! Had they slain 

All, that the earth should from her womb bring forth 

New nations to destroy them? From the depth 

Of forests, from what none had dared explore, 

Regions of thrilling ice, as though in ice . 

Engendered, multiplied, they pour along, 

Shaggy and huge! Host after host, they come ; 

The Goth, the Vandal ; and again the Goth! 
Once more we look, and all is still as night, 

All desolate! Groves, temples, palaces, 

Swept from the sight ; and nothing visible, 

Amid the sulphurous vapours that exhale 

As from a land accurst, save here and there 

An empty tomb, a fragment like the limb 

Of some dismembered giant. In the midst 

A city stands, her domes and turrets crowned 

With many a cross; but they that issue forth 

Wander like strangers who had built among 

The mighty ruins, silent, spiritless ; 

And on the road, where once we might have met 

Cesar and Cato, and men more than kings, 


We meet, none else, the pilgrim and the beggar. 


+ 2 
kal ak ae ew 





164 ITALY. 


THE ROMAN PONTIFFS. 


Those ancient men, what were they, who achieved 
A sway beyond the greatest conquerors ; 

Setting their feet upon the necks of kings, 

And, through the world, subduing, chaining down 
The free, immortal spirit? Were they not 
Mighty magicians? Theirs a wondrous spell, 
Where true and false were with infernal art 

Close interwoven ; where together met 

Blessings and curses, threats and promises ; 

And with the terrors of futurity 


Mingled whate’er enchants and fascinates, . 


Music and painting, sculpture, rhetoric, 


And dazzling light and darkness visible, 

And architectural pomp, such as none else ! 

What in his day the Syracusan sought, 

Another world to plant his engines on, 

They had ; and, having it, like gods, not men, 

Moved this world at their pleasure. Ere they came, 

Their shadows, str es far and wiles were 
known ; ap te 


»* 


Siete. 





ITALY. at 165 


~ And two, that looked beyond the visible sphere, 


Gave notice of their coming—he who saw 





The Apocalypse; and he of elder time, 

Who in an awful vision of the night 

Saw the four kingdoms. Distant as they were, 
Those holy men, well might they faint with fear ! 


4 rr ye 
ee - 
< »* * 
ie ae 
*g* iv se, 4 
OW Ree fs 
% ae. 


166 ey ITALY. 


CAIUS CESTIUS. 


When I am inclined to be serious I love to wan- 
der up and down before the tomb of Caius Cestius. 
The protestant burial ground is there; and most of 
the little monuments are erected to the young— 
young men of promise, cut off when on their travels, 
full of enthusiasm, full of enjoyment; brides, in the 
bloom of their beauty, on their first journey; or 
children borne from home in search of health. 
This stone was placed by his fellow travellers, 
young as himself, who will return to- the house of 
his parents without him; that, by a husband or a 
father, now in his native country. His heart is 
buried in that grave. 

It is a quiet and sheltered nook, covered in the 
winter with violets; and the pyramid, that oversha- 
dows it, gives it a classical and singularly solemn 
air. You feel an interest there, a sympathy you 
were not prepared for. You are yourself in a 
foreign land, and they are, for the most part, your 
countrymen. They call upon you in your mother 
tongue—in English—in words unknown to a native, 


x 
ms : "¢ 
ITALY. 167 
known only to yourselves: and the tomb of Cestius, - 


that old majestic pile, has this also in common with 
them. It is itself a stranger among strangers. It 
has stood there till the language spoken round about 
it has changed; and the shepherd, born at the foot, 
can read its inscription no longer. 


¢ ; 
THE NUN. 
~ oe 
’Tis over ; and her lovely cheek is now ~ 
On her hard pillow—there, alas, to be 
Nightly, through many and many a dreary hour, 
Wan, often wet with tears, and (ere at length 
Her place is empty, and another comes) 3 
In anguish, in the ghastliness of death ; 
Hers never more to leave those mournful walls, 
Even on her bier. 
*Tis over; and the rite, © ~~ 
With all its pomp and harmony, is now 
Floating before her. She arose at home, 
To be the show, the idol of the day ; 
Her vesture gorgeous, and her starry head— 
No rocket, bursting in the midnight-sky, 


So dazzling. When to-morrow she awakes, 


She will awake as though she still was there, 
- Still in her father’s house ; and lo, a cell 


Narrow and dark, nought through the ibe dis- ~ 
cerned, aah 


r a 
* 
mw ; . . 
r C ay . 
s : > 
7 wT : 





7 a oe k i oe i 
‘’ is ©, 
. eo Pen y: Sm |. # I69 


Nought save the crucifix, the rosary, » ¥. “ 
_ And the gray habit lying by to shroud ais 
Her beauty and grace. x 
~ When offher knees she fell, 

Entering the solemn place of consecration, 
And from the latticed gallery came a chant 
Of psalms, most saint-like, most angelical, 
Verse after verse sung out how holily, 
The strain returning, and still, still returning, 
Methought it acted like a spell upon her, 
And she was casting off her ear ly dross ; 
Yet was it sad as sweet, and, ere it closed, 
Came like a dirge. When her fair head was shorn, 
And the long tresses in her hands were laid, 
That she might fling them from her, saying, 
; «¢ Thus, | | 
Thus I renounce the world and worldly things !” 
When, as she stood, her bridal ornaments 
Were, one by one, removed, even to-the last, 
That she might say, flinging them from her, “Thus, 
ThusI renounce the world!” when all was changed, 
And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt, 
Veiled in her veil, crowned with her silver crown, 
Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ, 

12 ? 


ae * 


& 


*. 
* 
sy 
oh? wees 


, 


170 ITALY. 


Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees 

Fail in that hour! Well might the holy man, 

He, at whose feet she knelt, give as by stealth | 

("T'was in her utmost need ; nor, while she lives, 

Will it go from her, fleeting as it was) 

That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love 

And pity! [si . ‘ 

Like a dream the whole is fled ; 

And they, that came in idleness to gaze 

Upon the victim dressed for sacrifice, 

Are mingling in the world ; thou in thy cell 

Forgot, Teresa. Yet, among them all, 

None were so formed to love and to be loved, 

None to delight, adorn; and on thee now 

A curtain, blacker than the night, is dropped 

For ever! In thy gentle bosom sleep 

Feelings, affections, destined now to die, 

To wither like the blossom in the bud, 

Those of a wife, a mother ; leaving there 

A cheerless void, a chill as of the grave, 

A languor and.a lethargy of soul, 

Death-like, and gathering more and more, till 
Death we 


Comes to release thee. Ah, what now to thee, 


ITALY. 171 


What now to thee the treasure of thy youth ? 
As nothing! 

But thou canst not yet reflect 
Calmly ; so many things, strange and perverse, 
That meet, recoil, and go but to return, | 
The monstrous birth of one eventful day, 
Troubling thy spirit—from the first, at dawn, 
The rich arraying for the nuptial feast, 
To the black pall, the requiem. All in turn 
Revisit thee, and round thy lowly bed 
Hover, uncalled. Thy young and innocent heart, 
How is it beating? Has it no regrets? 
Discoverest thou no weakness lurking there ? 
But thine exhausted frame has sunk to rest. 


Peace to thy slumbers ! 


i 


172 . ITA a“ 





Unsheaths his wings, and thro’ the woods and glades 

Scatters a marvellous splendour. On he wheels, 

Blazing by fits as from excess of joy, 

Each gush of light a gush of ecstacy ;. 

Nor unaccompanied ; thousands that fling 

A radiance all their own, not of the day, , 

Thousands as bright as he, from dusk till dawn, 

Soaring, descending. ; 

{n the mother’s lap 

Well may the child put forth his little hands, 

Singing the nursery-song he learned so soon; 
And the young nymph, preparing for the dance 

By brook or fountain-side, in many a braid 

Wreathing her golden hair, well may she cry, 

«Come hither ; and the shepherds, gathering round, 

Shall say, Floretta emulates the night, 


zs, 
: § 


LAL 173 


Spangling her head with stars.” Oft have I met 
This shining race, when in the Tusculan groves 
My path no longer glimmered ; oft among 

Those trees, religious once and always green, _ 
That yet dream out their stories of pie om. | 
Over the Alban lake ; oft met ald i hailed, ig 
Where the precipitate , Anio thunders om. 





And through the surging mist a poet’s house 

(So some aver, and who would not believe 1) 
Reveals itself. Yet cannot | forget 

Him, who rejoiced me in those walks at eve,* 
My earliest, pleasantest, who dwells unseen, 

And in our northern clime, when all is still, 
‘Nightly keeps watch, nightly in bush or brake 
His lonely lamp rekindling. Unlike theirs, 

His, if less dazzling, through the darkness knows 
No intermission ; sending forth its ray 


Through the green leaves, a ray serene and clear 


oo 


As virtue’s own. 
* The glow-worm. ' 


Ee ; 


174 ITALY. 


FOREIGN TRAVEL. 


It was in a splenetic humour that I sate me down 

to my scanty fare at Terracina ; and how long I 

» should have contemplated the lean thrushes in ar- 

ray before me, I cannot say, if a cloud of smoke, 

that drew the tears into my eyes, had not burst 

from the green and leafy boughs on the hearth-stone. 
“Why,” I exclaimed, starting up from the ‘table, 

4 : ‘why did I leave my own chimney-corner ?—But 
me am I not on the road to Brundusium? And are not 
these the. very calamities that befel Horace and 
Virgil, and Mecenas, and Plotius, and Varius ? 
Horace laughed at them—Then why should not I? 
Horace resolved to turn them to account ; and Vir- 
gil—cannot we hear him observing, that to remem- 
ber them will, by and by, be a pleasure?” My 
soliloquy reconciled me at once to my fate; and 
when for the twentieth time, I had looked through 
the window on a sea sparkling with innumerable 
brilliants, a sea on which the heroes of the Odyssey 
and the Eneid had sailed, I sat down as to a splen- 
did bani My thrushes had the flavour of 


bd 


ITALY. 175 


ortolans; and I ate with an appetite I had not 
known before. “ Who,” I cried, as I poured out my 
last glass of Falernian,* (for Falernian it was said 
to be, and in my eyes it ran bright and clear asa 
topaz-stone,) ‘ who would remain at home, could 
he do otherwise ? Who would submit to tread that 
dull, but daily round ; his hours forgotten as soon 
as spent ?” and, opening my journal-book and dip- 
ping my pen in my ink-horn, I determined, as far 
as I could, to justify myself and my countrymen in 
wandering over the face of the earth. “It may 
serve me,” said I, “as a remedy in some future fit 
of the spleen.” 


Ours is a nation of travellers;} and no wonder, 
when the elements, air, water, fire, attend at our 
bidding to transport us from shore to shore; when 
the ship rushes into the deep, her track the foam as 
of some mighty torrent ; and, in three hours or less, 


*We were now within afew hours of the Campania Felix. On 
the colour and flavour of Falernian consult Galen and Dioscorides. 

{ As indeed it always was, contributing those of every degree, from 
a milord with his suite to him whose only attendant is his shadow. 
Coryate in 1608 performed his journey on foot; and returning, hung 
up his shoes in his village-church as an ex-voto. Goldsmith, a centu- 
ry anda half afterwards, followed in nearly the same path; playing a 
tune on his flute to procure admittance, whenever he approached a 
cottage at night-fall. +m 


we 





we stand gazing 
% © people. None 1 









a 4 . 
recover ; if 


‘ Roe Se ; i. $4 
‘studious, to learn; if learned, to relax from. their 


studies. But whatever they may say, whatever 
they may believe, they go for the most part on.the 
same errand ; nor will those w o reflect, think that 


errand an idle one. 
Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do. 
* 


they enter the world, than they lose that taste for 
natural and simple pleasures, so remarkable in 
early life. Every hour do they sk themselves 
what progress they have made in the pursuit of 
wealth or honour; and on they go as their fathers 
went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, 
they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden 
time of their childhood. 

Now travel, and foreign travel more particularly, 
restores to us ina great degree what we have lost. 
When the anchor is heaved, we double down the 
leaf; and-for a while at least all effort is over. The 
old cares are left clustering round the. old objects; 
and at every step, as we proceed, the slightest cir- 
cumstance amuses and interests. All is new and 
strange. We surrender ourselves, and feel once 
again as children. Like them, we enjoy eagerly ; 


they go to » 


3 YS a ce 


like them wien’ we fret, wi : ou aly | em ‘ Ag’ 


* 







m nt; > an indeed t 


remarkable, a ifa journe has ains as well | 





as its pleasures (and there is noth g unmixed in 
this world) the pains are no sooner over than they 
are forgotten, while the pleasures live long in the 


} a 
memory. ot ie 


Nor is it surely without another advantage. If 


* 4 


life be short, not so to many of us are its days amd 


its hours. When the blood slumbers in the veins, 


how often do we wish that the earth would turn 
faster on its Ms, that the sun would rise and set 
before it does ; and, to escape from the weight of 
time, how y many follies, how many crimes are com- 
mitted! Men rush on danger, and even on death. 
Intrigue, play, foreign and domestic broil, such are 
their resources; and, when these things fail, they 


destroy themselves. a 


Now in travelling we multiply events, and inno- 
cently. We set out, as it were, on our adventures; 
and many are those that occur to us, morning, noon, 
and night. ‘The day we come to a.place which we 
have long heard and read of, and in Italy we do so 
continually, it is an era in our lives ; and from that 
moment the very name calls up a picture. How 
delightfully too does the knowledge flow in upon 


178 ITALY. 


us, and how fast !* Would he who sat in a corner 
of his library, poring over books and maps, learn 
more or so much in the time, as he who, with his 
eyes and his heart open, is receiving impressions 
all day long from the things themselves?} How 
accurately do they arrange themselves in our me- 
mory, towns, rivers, mountains; and in what living: 
colours do we recall the dresses, manners, and 
customs of the people! Our sight is the noblest of 
all our senses. ‘‘It fills the mind with most ideas, 
converses With its objects at the greatest distance, 
and continues longest in action without being tired.” 
Our sight is on- the alert when we travel; and its 
exercise is then so delightful, that we forget the 
profit in the pleasure. 

Like a river, that gathers, that refines as it runs, 
like a spring that takes its course through some rich 
vein of mineral, we improve and imperceptibly—nor 
in the head only, but in the heart. Our prejudices 
leave us one by one. Seas and mountains are no 
longer our boundaries. We learn to love, and es- 

* To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes on 
the markets and the fields. If the markets are well supplied, the 
fields well cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, we may say, and say 
truly, these people are barbarous or oppressed. : 

t Assuredly not, if the last* has laid a proper foundation. Know- 


ledge makes knowledge as money makes money, nor ever perhaps so 
fast as on a journey. 


“ITALY. 479 


teem, and admire beyond them. Our benevolence 
extends itself with our knowledge. And must we 
not return. better. citizens than we went? For the 
more we become acquainted with the institutions 
of other countries, the more highly must we value 


our OWN. 





I threw down my pen in triumph. “ The ques- 
' tion,” said I, “is set to rest for ever. And yet—” 

“ And yet—” I must still say. The wisest. of 
men seldom went out of the walls of Athens; and 
for that worst of evils, that sickness of the soul, to 
which we are most liable when most at our ease, is 
there not after all a surer and yet pleasanter remedy, 
a remedy for which we have only to cross the 
threshold? A Piedmontese nobleman, into whose 
company I fell at Turin, had not long before expe- 
rienced its efficacy; and his story, which he told 
me without reserve, was as follows. 

“T was weary of life, and, after a day, such as 
few have known and none would wish to remember, 
was hurrying along the street to the river, when I 
felt a sudden check. I turned and beheld a little 
boy, who had caught the skirt of my cloak in his 
anxiety to solicit my notice. His lookand manner 
were irresistible. Not less so was the lesson he 


eel 
+ 





180 ITALY. 


had learnt. ‘There are six of us; and we are 
dying for want of food.—‘ Why should I not,” 
said I to myself, ‘relieve this wretched family ? 
I have the means; and it will not delay me many 
minutes. But what, if it does? The scene of mis- 
ery he conducted me to, I cannot describe. I threw 
them my purse ; and their burst of gratitude over- 


came me. It filled my eyes—it went as a cordial 


to my heart. ‘I will call again to-morrow,’ I 
eried. Fool that I was, to think of leaving a 
world, where such pleasure was to be had, and so 


cheaply !”” 








r ITALY. 18 


* 

i : 

= : 

- ~ THE FOUNTAIN. 

-) i 

ie? SS 
ms ‘ 
we am P It was a well 


On whitest Hibicble, white as from the quarry ; 
And richly wrought with many a high relief, 
Greek sculpture—in some earlier day perhaps 
af k "A tomb, and honoured with a hero’s ashes. 
The water from the rock filled, overflowed it ; 
Then dashed away, playing the prodigal, 
And soon was lost—stealing unseen, unheard, 
Through the long grass, and round the twisted roots 
_ Of aged trees ; discovering where it ran 
By the fresh verdure. Overcome with heat, 
I threw me down; admiring, as | lay, 

- That shady nook, a singing-place for birds, 
That grove so intricate, so full of flowers, 
More than enough to please a child a-Maying. 

The sun had set, a distant convent bell 
Ringing the Angelus ; and now approached 
The hour for stir and village gossip there, 

~The hour Rebekah came, when from the well 


° 
; 


we . 
& 


e 


ks 


oe amu Gio 
i: * 


She ls, with such alacrity to serve 
The stranger and his camels. Soon I heard 
Footsteps ; and lo, descending by a path 
Trodden for ages, many a nymph appeared, 
Appeared and vanished, bearing on her head 
Her earthen pitcher. It called up the day 
Ulysses landed there ; and long I gazed, 
Like one awaking in a distant time.* 

At length there came the loveliest of them all, 
Her little brother dancing down before her ; 


And ever as he spoke, which he did ever, 


Turning and looking up in warmth of heart 

And brotherly affection. Stopping there, 

She joined her rosy hands, and, filling them 

With the pure element, gave him to drink ; 

And, while he quenched his thirst, standing on tiptoe, 

Looked down upon him with a sister’s smile, 

Nor stirred till he had done, fixed’as a statue. 
Then hadst thou seen them as they stood, Canova, 

Thou hadst endowed them with immortal youth ; 

And they had evermore lived undivided, « 

Winning all hearts—of all thy works the fairest. - 


* The place here described is near Mola di Gaeta in the kingdom 
of Naples. 


- i > 


a 
ITALY. ‘B,*%° 199 


BANDITTI. 


"Tis a wild life, fearful and full of change, 
The mountain-robber’s. On the watch he lies, 
Levelling his carbine at the passenger ; 
And, when his work is done, he dares not sleep. 

Time was, the trade was nobler, if not honest ; 
When they that robbed were men of better faith 
Than kings or pontiffs ; when, such reverence 
The poet drew among the woods and wilds, 
A voice was heard, that never bade to spare, 
Crying aloud, ‘‘ Hence to the distant hills! 
Tasso approaches ; he, whose song beguiles 
The day of half its hours ; whose sorcery 
Dazzles the sense, turning our forest-glades 
To lists that blaze with gorgeous‘armoury, 
Our mountain-cayves to regal palaces. 
Hence, nor descend till he and his are gone. 
Let him fear nothing.” 

When along the shore, 

And by the path that, wandering on its way, 


tage le a a 
ay, Re, : MPR 






= 


Leads through the fatal grove where ihe fell, - 
. (Gray and o’ergrown, an ancient tomb is there,) 


| "S : 


ee: 


He came and they withdrew ; they were a race 
Careless of life in others and themselves, 

For they had learned their lesson in a camp ; 
But not ungenerous. Tis no longer so. 

Now crafty, cruel, torturing ere they slay 

The unhappy captive, and with bitter jests 


_Mocking misfortune ; vain, fantastical, 


poesia whatever glitters in the spoil ; 

ae most devout, tho’, when they kneel and pray, 

With every bead they could recount a murder, 

As by a spell they start up in array, . 

As by a spell they vanish—theirs a band, 

Not as elsewhere of outlaws, but of such 

As sow and reap, and at the cottage door ~ _ 

Sit to receive, return the traveller’s greeting ; 

Now in the garb of peace, now silently 

Arming and issuing forth, led on by men 

Whose names on innocent lips are words of fear, 

Whose lives have long been forfeit. Some there are 

That, ere they rise to this bad eminence, 

Lurk, night and day, the plague-spot visible, 

The guilt that says, Beware ; and mark we now ‘ 
& ae 


ra aa 





oe ae eee, ‘ya? “2% 


: ia a ee 
araLy. see 185 #, 


Higijoviite | he x a couches for his ne a 

At the bridge-foot in some dark caus : es 

Scooped by the waters, or some gaping tomb, 

Nameless and tenantless, whence the red fox 

Slunk as he entered. There he broods in spleen 

Gnawing his beard; his rough and sinewy frame 

O’erwritten with the story of his life : 

On his wan cheek a sabre-cut, well-earned . 

In foreign warfare ; on his breast the brand 

Indelible, burnt in when to the port’ 

He clanked his chain, among a hundred more. ; 

Dragged ignominiously ; on every limb 

Memorials of his glory and his shame, 

Stripes of the lash and honourable scars, 

And channels here and there worn to the bone 

By galling fetters. He comes slowly forth, 

Unkennelling, and up that savage dell 

Anxiously looks ; his cruise, an ample gourd, 

(Duly replenished from the vintner’ s cask,) 

Slung from his shoulder ; in his breadth of belt 

Two pistols and a dagger yet uncleansed, 

A parchment scrawled with uncouth characters, 

And a small vial, his last remedy, 

His cure, when all things fail. No noise is heard, 
13 

®; 





git oe 


“ie 
186 IT AUyY. 


Save when the rugged bear and the gaunt wolf 
Howl in the upper region, or a fish 

Leaps in the gulf beneath.—But now he kneels, 
And, like a scout when listening to the tramp 
Of horse or foot, lays his experienced ear 

Close to the ground, then rises and explores, 
Then kneels again, and, his short rifle-gun 


Against his cheek, waits patiently. ——Two monks, 





Portly, grey-headed, on their gallant steeds, 
Descend where yet a mouldering Gross o’erhangs 
The grave of one.that from the precipice 

Fell in an evil hour. ‘Their bridle-bells 

Ring merrily ; and many a loud, long laugh 
Re-echoes ; but at once the sounds are lost. 
Unconscious of the good in store below, 

The holy fathers have turned off, and now 

Cross the brown heath, ere long to wag their beards 
Before my lady abbess, and discuss 

Things only known to the devout and pure 

O’er her spiced bowl—then shrive the sisterhood, 
Sitting by turns with an inclining ear 


In the confessional. 





He moves his lips 
As with a curse—then paces up and down, 


Now fast, now slow, brooding and muttering on; 


pre 
ITALY. 187 


Gloomy alike to him the past, the future. 

But hark, the nimble tread of numerous feet ! 
—’Tis but a dappled herd, come down to slake 
Their thirst in the cool wave. He turns and aims; 
Then.checks himself, unwilling to disturb 
The sleeping echoes. Once again he earths; 
Slipping away to house with them beneath, 

His old companions in that hiding place, 

The bat, the toad, the blind-worm, and the newt ; 
And hark, a footstep, firm and confident, 

As of a man in haste. Nearer it draws ; 

And now is at the entrance of the den. 

Ha! ’tis a comrade, sent to gather in 

The band for some great enterprise. Who wants 
A sequel may read on. The unvarnished tale 
That follows, will supply the place of one. 

"Twas told me by the Count St. Angelo, 

When in a blustering night he sheltered me 

In that brave castle of his ancestors 

O’er Garigliano, and is such indeed 

As every day brings with it—in a land 

Where laws are trampled on, and lawless men 
Walk in the sun; but it should not be Jost, 


For it may serve to bind us to our country. 


188 IPVALT: 


AN’ ADVENTURE. 


~ ee 


of 


+ Three days they lay in ambush at my gate, 


il 
ole 


Then sprung and led me captive. Many a wild 

We traversed ; but Rusconi, ’twas no less, 

Marched-by my side, and, when I thirsted, climbed 

The cliffs for water ; though, whene’er he spoke, 

*T was briefly, sullenly ; and on he led, 

Distinguished only by an amulet, 

That in a golden chain hung from his neck, 

A crystal of rare virtue. Night fell fast, 

When on a heath, black and immeasurable, - 

He turned and bade them halt. T'was where the 
earth 

Heaves o’er the dead—where erst some Alaric 


Fought his last fight, and every warrior threw — 


_ A stone to tell for ages where he lay. 


~ Then all advanced, and, ranging in a square, 
Stretched forth their arms as on the holy cross, 
From each to each their sable cloaks extending, 


That, like the solemn hangings of a tent, 


ITALY.. 189 


Covered us round; and in the midst I stood, 

Weary and faint, and face to face with one, 

Whose voice, whose look, dispenses life and death, “* 
Whose heart knows no relentings. Instantly © © 
A light was kindled, and the bandit spoke. é 4. 
“¢] know thee. Thou hast sought us, for the sport * Ee 
Slipping thy blood-hounds with a hunter’s cry ; ii 
And thou hast found at last. Were I as thou, — 


I in thy grasp as thou art now in ours, 


* 


Soon should I make a midnight spectacle, 

Soon, limb by limb, be mangled on a wheel, 
Then gibbeted to blacken for the vultures. 

But I would teach thee better—how to spare. ~ 
Write as 1 dictate. If thy ransom comes, 

Thou liv’st. 1f not—but answer not, I pray, | 
Lest thou provoke me. I may strike thee dead ; 
And know, young man, it is an easier thing 

To do it than to say it. Write, and thus.”— 

I wrote. “’Tis well,” he eried. ‘ A peasant boy, 
Trusty and swift of foot, shall: bear it hence. 
Meanwhile lie down and rest. This cloak of mine 
Will serve thee ; it has weathered many a storm.” 
The watch was set ; and twice it had been changed, 
When morning broke, and a wild bird, a hawk, 


. 


190 < ITALY. 

Flew in a circle, screaming. I looked up, 

And all were gone, save him who now kept guard, 

-And on his arms lay musing. Young he seemed, 

And sad, as though he could indulge at will 

_ Some secret sorrow. ‘Thou shrink’st back,’’ he 

said. : 

“ Well may’st thou, lying, as thou dost, so near 

A ruffian—one for ever linked and bound 

To guilt and infamy. There was a time 

When he had not perhaps been deemed unworthy, 

When he had watched that planet to its setting, 

And dwelt with pleasure on the ‘meanest thing 

That nature has given birth to. Now ’tis past. 
Wouldst thou know more? My story is an old one. 

I loved, was scorned ; [ trusted, was betrayed ; 

And in my anguish, my necessity, 

Met with the fiend, the tempter—in Rusconi. 

‘Why thus?’ he cried. ‘ Thou would’st be free 

and dar’st not. : 

Come and assert thy birth-right while thou can’st. 

A robber’s cave is better than a dungeon ; 

And death itself, what is it at the worst, 

What, but a harlequin’s leap? Him I had known, 

Had served with, suffered with ; and on the walls 


ITALY. 191 


Of Capua, while the moon went down, I swore 
Allegiance on his dagger. Dost thou ask 
How I have kept my oath? Thou shalt be told, 
Cost what it may. But grant me, I implore, 
Grant me a passport to some distant land, 
That I may never, never more be named. 
-Thou wilt, I know thou wilt. 
Two months ago, 
When on a vineyard-hill we lay concealed 
And scattered up and down as we were wont, 
I heard a damsel singing to herself, 
And soon espied her, coming all alone, 
In her first beauty- Up a path she came, 
Leafy and intricate, singing her song, 
A song of love, by snatches ; breaking off 
If but a flower, an insect in the sun 
Pleased for an instant ; then as carelessly 
The strain resuming, and, where’er she stopt, 
Rising on tiptoe underneath the boughs 
To pluck a grape in very wantonness. 
Her look, her mien and maiden-ornaments 
Showed gentle birth; and, step by step, she came 
Nearer and nearer to the dreadful snare. 
None else were by ; and, as I gazed unseen, 


a ae eh ieee i 


* Ba 






192 ITALY. 


ti 


Her youth, her innocence and gai 


‘A wood-nymph!’ cried Rusconi. ‘ By the light, 
Lovely as Hebe! Lay her in the shade.’ 

I heard him not. I stood as in a trance. . 

‘ What,’ he exclaimed, with a malicious smile, 
‘Wouldst thou rebel?’ I did as he required. 

‘ Now bear her hence to the well-head below ; 

A few cold drops will animate this marble. , 
Go! .’Tis an office all will envy thee ; 

But thou hast earned it.’ As I staggered down, 
Unwilling to surrender her sweet body, — 

Her golden hair dishevelled on a neck 

Of snow, and her fair eyes closed as in sleep, 
Frantic with love, with hate, «Great God!’ I cried, 
(I had almost forgotten how to pray, _ 

But there are moments when the courage comes,) 
‘Why may I not, while yet—while yet 1 can, 
Release her from a thraldom worse than death 
"Twas done as soon as said. I kissed her brow, 
And smote her with my dagger. A short cry 
She uttered, but she stirred not ; and to heaven — 





; e bser v ed me, though their steps were following fast. 
But soon a yell broke forth, and all at once 
Levelled their deadly aim. Then I had ceased 
To trouble or be troubled, and had now 
(Would I were there!) been slumbering in my 

grave, 
Had not Rusconi with a terrible shout 
Thrown himself in between us, and exclaimed, 
Grasping my arm, ‘Tis bravely, nobly. done! 
Is it for deeds like these thou wear’st a sword ? 
Was this the business that thou cam’st upon? 
—But ’tis his first offence, and let it pass. 
Like the young tiger he has tasted blood, 
And may do much hereafter. He can strike 

Home to the hilt.’ Then in an under tone, 
‘Thus wouldst thou justify the pledge I gave, 
When in the eyes of all I read distrust ? 

For once,’ and on his cheek methought I saw 
The blush of virtue, ‘I will save thee, Albert ; 
Again I cannot.’” 

Ere his tale was told, 
As on the heath we lay, my ransom came ; 










> Albert was: silt on a quiet seal > Naik 
—But the night wears, and thou art. Frouch i in 





sa t ) 6 d et thee to thy satoa ae 


Je 


; 2 x © 


ay. 








“ye P Cat fe An oe a rm 
3 itis 


' i . 
» > - oh. 
ITALY. . , oe ey 


AALS ga 





¥ = 
; Sox 
This region, surely, is not of the. perth. * 


Was it not dropt from heaven? Not a grove, 
Citron or pine or cedar, not a grot, 
Sea-worn and mantled with the gadding vine, 
But breathes enchantment. Nota cliff but flings 
On the clear wave some image of delight, 
Some cabin-roof glowing with crimson flowers, 
Some ruined temple or fallen monument, 
To muse.on as the bark is gliding by. ° 
And be it mine to muse there, mine to glide, 
From day- -break, when the mountain pales his fire 
Yet ‘more -and more, and ‘from the mountain-top, 
ill ‘then invisible, a smoke ascends, 
Solemn an slow, as erst from Ararat, 
hen he the patriarch, who escaped the flood, 
Was h his household sacrificing there— 
2 Fro seg to that hour, the last and best, 
When, one by one, the fishing- boats come forth, 


* Un pezzo di cielo caduto i in terra. SANNAZARO. 


¥ 


6 ad 


Fi eran: 
Each with its glimmering lantern at the prow, 
And, when the nets are thrown, the evening hymn 
Steals o’er the trembling waters. 

Every where 
Fable and truth have shed, in rivalry, 
Each her peculiar influence. Fable came, 
And laughed and sung, arraying truth in flowers, 
Like a young child her grandam. Fable came, 
Earth, sea and sky reflecting, as she flew, 
_ A thousand, thousand colours:not their own: 
And at her bidding, lo! a dark descent 
To Tartarus, and those thrice happy fields, 
Those fields with ether pure and purple light 
Ever invested, scenes by him portrayed,* 
Who here was wont to wander, here invoke 
The sacred Muses,} here receive, record 
What they revealed, and on the western shore 
Sleeps in a silent grove, o’erlooking thee, - 
Beloved Parthenope. ™ , 
Yet here, methinks, | i 
Truth wants no ornament, in her own shape. 
Filling the mind by turns with awe and love, 
By turns inclining to wild ecstacy, : 


* Virgil. t Quarum sacra fero; ingenti percussus amore. 


ITALY. ae : 


And soberest meditation. Here the vines 
Wed, each her elm, and o’er the golden grain 
Hang their luxuriant clusters, checkering 
The sunshine ; where, when cooler shadows fall, 
And the mild moon her fairy net-work weaves, 
The lute, or mandoline, accompanied 
By many a voice yet sweeter than their own, 
Kindles, nor slowly ; and the dance* displays 
The gentle arts and witcheries of love, 
Its hopes and fears and feignings, till the youth 
Drops on his knee as vanquished, and the maid, 
Her tambourine uplifting with a grace, | : 
Nature’s, and nature’s only, bids him rise. 

But here the mighty monarch underneath, 
He in his palace of fire, diffuses round 
A dazzling splendour. Here, unseen, unheard, 
Opening another Eden in the wild, 
He wore ‘his wonders ; save, when 1 issuing forth 
In thunder be blots out the sun, the sky, 
And, mingling all things earthly as in scorn, 
Exalts the valley, lays the mountain low, 
Pours many a torrent from his burning lake, 
And in an hour of universal mirth, 


* The Tarantella. 


2, =. 
ee oe a 





198 ITALY. 


What time the trump proclaims the festival, ~ 
Buries some capital city, there to sleep. 
The sleep of ages—till a plough, a spade 
Disclose the secret, and the eye of day 
Glares coldly on the streets, the skeletons, - 
Fach in his place, each in his gay attire, 
And eager to enjoy. 

Let us go round, 
And let the sail be slack, the course be slow, 
That at our leisure, as we coast along, 
We may contemplate, and from every scene 
Receive its influence. The Cumezan towers, 
There did they rise, sun-gilt ; and here thy groves, 
Delicious Baiz. Here (what would they not?) 
The masters of the earth, unsatisfied, 
‘Built in the sea ; and now the boatman steers 
O’er many a crypt and vault yet glimmering, 
O’er many a broad and indestructible arch, 
The deep foundations of their palaces ; 
Nothing now heard ashore, so great the change, 
Save when the sea-mew clamours, or the owl 
Hoots in the temple. 


W hat the mountainous isle,* 


* Capree. 


es 


a 


ITALY. 199. 


Seen in the south? ’Tis where a monster dwelt,* 
Hurling his victims from the topmost cliff; 
Then and then only merciful, so slow, 
So subtle were the tortures they endured. 
Fearing and feared he lived, cursing and cursed ; 
And still the dungeons in the rock breathe out 
Darkness, distemper. Strange, that one so vile 
Should from his den. strike terror thro’ the world ; 
Should, where withdrawn in his decrepitude, 
Say to the noblest, be they where they might, 
« Go from the earth!” and from the earth they went. 
Yet such things were—and will be, when mankind, 
Losing all virtue, lose all energy ; 
And for the loss incur the penalty, 
Trodden down and trampled. 
Let us turn the prow, 
And in the track of him who went to die,t 
Traverse this valley of waters, landing where 
A waking dream awaits us. Ata step 
Two thousand years roll backward, and we stand, 
Like those so long within that awful place, 
Immoveable, nor asking, Can it be? 
' * Tiberius. 
{ The Elder Pliny. See the letter in which his nephew relates to 


Tacitus the circumstances of his death. 
£ Pompeii. 


ale, 


z 


4s 
a il 


* 
¥ 
7 
* 
- 


* 


200 iTrALye ™& - ag 


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+ we 


Once did I linger there alone, till day” 


Closed, and at length the calm of twilight came, 


So grateful, yet so solemn ! Agape 
Just where the three waygpmeet sd t 


(T'was near a noble house, the Huse of Pansa,) 
And all was still as in the long, long night 
That followed, when the shower of ashes fell, 


ood and looked, 


When they that sought Pompeii sought in vain; 


It was not tobe found.. But now a ray, 


Bright and yet brighter, on the pavement glanced, 


And on.the wheel-track worn for centuries, 

And on the stepping-stones from side to side, 
_ Over which the maidens, with their water-urns, 
or wont to trip so lightly. Full and clear, 

The moon was rising, and at once revealed 
The name of every dweller and his craft; ; 
Shining throughout with an unusual lustre, 
And lighting up this city of the dead. 


Mark, where within, as though the embers lived, 


The ample chimney-vault is dun with smoke. 
There dwelt a miller ; silent and at rest _ 
His mill-stones now. In old companionship 
Still do they stand as on the day he went, 
Each ready for its office—but he comes not. 


ee 
® = ‘ a 


“te 6 


1) as Tae ee 


ITALY. 901 


And there, “ae , (where one in idleness _ 

Has stopt to’scra # a ship, an armed man ; 

And ina tablet on he wall we read ~ - 

Of shows ere long to bes) a sculptor wrought, 

Nor meanly ; blocks, half-chiselled into life, 

Waiting his call. Here long, as yetattests 

The trodden floor, an olive merchant drew 

From many an earthen jar, no more supplied ; 

And here from his a vintner served his guests 

Largely, the stain of his o’erflowing cups 

Fresh on the marble. On the bench beneath 

They sate and quaffed arid looked on them that 

passed, 

Gravely discussing the last news from Rome. _ 
But lo, engraven on a threshold-stone, 

That word of courtesy, so sacred once, 

Hail! Ata master’s greeting we may enter. 

And Jo! a fairy palace !. every where, 

As through the courts and chambers we advance, 

Floors of Mosaic, walls of arabesque, © 


And columns clustering in patrician splendour. 


' But hark, a footstep! May we not intrude? 


And now, methinks, I hear a gentle laugh, 


» - Sets : | 
_ And gentle voices mingling as in converse! 


\ 


lhe 5 





Ps 4 
202 ITALY. 

—And now a ie as struck carelessly, = 
And now—along the corridor it comes— { 


1 cannot err, a filling as of baths ! Ge ie ? : 
—Ah, no, ’tis but a mockery of the sense, 
Idle and vain!. We are but witere we were 


Still ae ma city. of the dead. #5) sin 
| RE udiblains 
re 


“a 


ITALY. 203 


THE BAG OF GOLD. 


I dine very often with the good old Cardinal * * 
and, I should add, wi L his cats: for they always 
sit at his table, and are much the gravest of the 
company. His beaming countenance makes us for- 
get his age; nor did I ever see it clouded till yes- 
terday, when, as we were contemplating the sun-set 
from his terrace, he happened, in the course of our 
conversation, to allude to an affecting circumstance 
in his early life. . 

He had just left the university of Palermo, and 
was entering the army, when he became acquainted 
with a young lady of great beauty and merit, a 
Sicilian, of a family as illustrious as his own. Liv- 
ing near each other, they were often togéther; and, 
at an age like theirs, friendship soon turns to love. 
- But his father, for what reason I forget, refused his 
consent to their union; till, alarmed at the declin- 
ing health of his son, he promised to oppose it no 
longer, if, after a separation of three ee they 

continued as much in love as ever. 

Relying on that promise, he said, I set out on a 


204 IT ATE? 


long journey ; but in my absence the usual arts were 
resorted to. Our letters were intercepted ; and false 
rumours were spread—first of my indifference, then 
of my inconstancy, then of my marriage with a rich 
heiress of Sienna; and when at length I returned 
to make her my own, I found her in.a convent of 
Ursuline Nuns. She had taken the veil ;.an@ I, said 
he with a sigh—what else remained for me?7—I 
went into the church. 

Yet many, he continued, as if to turn the con- 
versation, very many have been happy though we 
were not; and,.if I am not-abusing an old man’s 
privilege, let me tell you a story with a better ca- 
tastrophe. It was told to me when a boy; and you 
may not be unwilling to hear: it, for it bears some 
resemblance to that of the Merchant of Venice. | 

We were now arrived:at a pavilion that com- 
manded one of the noblest prospects imaginable ; 
the mountains, the sea, and the islands, illuminated 
by the last beams of day; and, sitting down there, 
he proceeded with his usual vivacity ; for the sad- 
ness that had come across him was. gone. 

There lived in the fourteenth century, near Bo- 
logna, a widow lady of the Lambertini family, 
called Madonna Lucrezia, who in a revolution of 
the state had known the bitterness of poverty, and 


A 


ITALY. 205 


had even begged her bread; kneeling day after day 
like a statue at the gate of the cathedral ; her rosary 
in her left hand, and her right held out for charity ; 
her long black veil concealing a face that had once 
adorned a court, and had received the homage of 
as many sonnets as Petrarch has written on Laura. 

But fortune had at last relented ; a‘legacy from a 
distant relation had come to-.her relief; and she 
‘was now the mistress of a small inn at the foot of 
the Appenines; where she entertained.as well as 
she could, and where those only stopped who were 
contented with a little. ‘The house was still stand- 
ing, when in my youth I passed that way ; though 
the sign of the White Cross,* the cross of the Hos- 
pitallers, was no longer to be seen over the door; a 
sign which she had-taken, if we may believe the 
tradition there, in honour of a maternal uncle, a 
grand. master of that order, whose achievements in 
Palestine she would sometimes relate. A moun- 
tain-stream ran through the-garden; and at no great 
distance, where the road turned on its way to Bo- 
logna, stood a little chapel, in which a lamp was 
always burning before a picture of the Virgin, a 
picture of great antiquity, the work of ‘some Greek 
artist. 


* La Croce Bianca. 


* “? 


206 Sara Bey 
a ae 
Here she was dwelling, respected by all who 
knew her; when an event took place which threw 
her into the deepest affliction. ‘It was at noon-day 
in September that three foot travellers arrived, and, 
seating themselves on a bench under her vine-trel- 
lis, were supplied with a flagon of Aleatico.by .a 
lovely girl, her only child, the image-of her former 
self. The eldest spoke like a Venetian, and his 
beard was short and pointed after the fashion of 
Venice. In his demeanour he affected gréat cour- 
tesy, but his look inspired. little confidences for 
when he smiled, which he did continually, it was: 
with his lips only, not with his eyes; and they 
were always turned from yours. His companions 
were bluff and frank in their manner, and on their 
tongues had many a soldier’s oath. In their: hats 
they wore a medal, such as in that age was: often 
distributed in war; and they were evidently subal- 
terns in one of those free bands which were always 
ready to serve in any quarrel, if a service it could 
be called, where a battle was little more than a 
mockery, and the slain, as on an opera stage, were 
up and fighting to-morrow. Overcome with the 
heat, they threw aside their-cloaks; and, with their 
gloves tucked under their belts, continued for some 
time in earnest conversation. 


ITALY .9ie 207 
At length they rose*to go; and the Venetian 
thus addressed their hostess. ‘Excellent lady, may 
we leave under.your roof, for a day or two, this bag 
of gold?? “You may,” she replied gaily. “But 
remember, we fasten only witha latch. Bars and 
bolts, we have none in our village ; and, if we had, 
where would be your security 2?” “In your word, 
lady.” : 

“But what if I died to-night? Where would it 
be then?” said she, laughing. “The money would 
exe) to the church, for none could claim it” 

_ “Perhaps you will favour us with an acknow- 
ledgment.” wil 

“If you will write it.”. 

An acknowledgment was written accordingly, 
and she signed it before Master Bartolo, the village 
physician, who had just called by chance to learn 
the news of the day ; the gold to be delivered when 
applied for, but to be delivered (these were the 
words) not to one—nor to two—but to the three; 
words wisely introduced by those to whom it be- 
longed, knowing what they knew of each other. 
The gold they had just released from a miser’s chest 
in Perugia; and they were now on a scent that pro- 
mised more. 

They and their shadows were no sooner departed, 


208 ITALY. 

¥ 
than the Venetian returned, saying, “ Give me leave 
to set my seal on the bag, as the others have done;” 
and she placed it on a table before him. But in 
that moment she was called away to receive a ca- 
valier, who had just dismounted” from his. horse ; 


ae 


and when she came back it was gone. The tempta- 


tion had proved irresistible; and the man and the 
money had vanished together. 
“Wretched woman that I am!” she cried, as in 
an agony of grief she fell on her daughter’s neck, 
“ What will become of us? Are we again to be 
cast out into the wide world?.. Unhappy child, 
would that thou ‘hadst never been born!” and all 
day long she lamented; but her tears availed her 
little. The others were not slow in returning to 
claim their due; and there were no tidings of the 
thief; he had fled far away with his plunder. A 


process against her was instantly begun in Bologna; — 


and what defence could she make; how release 
herself from the obligation of the bond? ‘Wilfully 


or in negligence she had parted with the gold; she — 


had parted with it to one, when she should have 
kept it for all; and inevitable ruin awaited ‘her! 
“Go, Gianetta;” said»she to her daughter, “take 
this veil which your mother has worn and wept 
under so often, and implore the counsellor Calderino 


ITALY. 209 
: 


to plead for us on the day of trial. He is generous, 
and will listen to the unfortunate. But, if he will 
not, go from door to door; Monaldi cannot refuse 
us. Make haste, my child ; but remember the. cha- 
pel as you pass by it. N othing prospers without a 
prayer.” i a 

Alas, she went, but in vain. These were retained 
against them; those demanded more than they.had 
to give; and-all bade them despair. What was to 
be done? No advocate; and the cause to come on 
to-morrow ! | a 

Now Gianetta had.a lover; and he was a student 
of the law, a young man of great promise, Lorenzo 
Martelli. He had studied long and diligently under 
that learned lawyer, Giovanni Andreas, who, though 
little of stature, was great in renown, and by his 
contemporaries was called the Archdoctor, the 
Rabbi of Doctors, the Light of the World. Under 
him he had studied, sitting on the same bench with 
Petrarch; and also under his daughter Novella, 
who would often lecture to the scholars, when her 
father was, otherwise engaged, placing herself be- 
hind.a small curtain, lest her beauty* should divert 

* Ce pourroit étre, says Bayle, la matiere d’un joli probléme: on 
pourroit €xaminer si cette fille avancoit, ou si elle-retardoit le profit 


de ses auditeurs, en leur cachant son beau visage. Il y auroit cent 
choses a dire pour et contre la-dessus. 


210 ITALY. 





their thoughts ; 3a precaution in this instante at leet t. ey, 
unnecessary, *Lorenzo ‘having lost his heart toano- =. 


4 } “* 
ther. oi % ve ee 
To him sgherffies in her necessity 5 but. of what: 
assistance can hebe ? 2 He has ~~ Li 









at the bar, but he has never spoken ; ; any 
up alone, inpractised and . unprepared d ai sh 
against’an array that would ‘alarm the: most expe- 
rienced ?.. “Were J as mighty asx: am wealyy said 
he,.““my: feats for you would make me as nothing. 
But I will be there, Gianetta; and-may the friend 
of the. friendless ‘give me strength in that hour! 
Even now my heart fails me; but, come what will, 
while I have a loaf to share, you. and: your. mother 
‘shall - never want. - 1, will beg through the .world 
tempol s chee et. 2, boii 
The'day arrives, and the court sogniuidans ‘The 
claim is. statéd, and the evidence given. ‘And now 
the defence is called for—but none is made }-not a 
syllable sis uttered 5 and, after a pause and 2 con= 
sultation,of some ininutes, the judges are proceed- 
ing to give: judgment, silence having been pro- 
claimed:.in’ ‘thé court, ‘when Lorenzo rises and, thus 
addresses them. ° ““ Reverend signors.. Young as I 
am, mayil, venture. to speak. before you? I-would 
eee Behalf ‘of: one who-has none else to ae 


ITALY. 211 — 





her; and I will not keep you long. Much has been 
said—much on the sacred nature of the obligation ; 
and we acknowledge it in its full force. Let it be 
fulfilled, and to the last letter. It is what we soli-. 
cit, what we require. But to whom is the bag of 
ae ‘to be delivered ? 2 What says the bond? Not 

ne—not to two—but to the three. Let 5 three 
Ra forth and ate it” . 

From that day, ( for ey can doubt the issue 2) 
none were sought, none “eniployed, but the subtle, 
the eloquent Lorenzo Wealth’ followed® fame ; 
nor need I say how soon he sat’ at his marriage- 
feast, or who sat. beside him. ¢ , 


> 
ra 


ee 





212 ITALY. : | Re 


A CHARACTER: 


One of two things Montrioli may have, 
My envy or compassion. - Both he cannot. 
Yet on he goes, numbering as miseries, 
What least of all he would consent to lose, 
What most indeed he prides himself upon, 
And, for not having, most despises me: 
«At morn the minister exacts an hour; 
At noon the king. Then comes the council-board ; 
And then the chasse, the supper. When, ah when, 
The leisure and the liberty I sigh for? 
Not when at home ; at home a miscreant crew, 


That. now no longer serve me, mine. the service. 






t then that old hereditary bore, 
The steward his stories longer than his rent-roll, 
. Wierenters, quill'in ear, and, one by one, 
As though 1 lived to write, and wrote to live, 
Unrolls his leases for my signature.” 

He clanks his fetters to disturb my peace. 
Yet who would wear them, and become the slave 


ITALY. 913 


Of wealth and power, renouncing willingly 

His freedom, and the hours that fly so fast, 

A burden or a curse when misemployed, i 
But to the wise how precious—every day 

A little life, a blank to be inscribed 

With gentle deeds, such as in after-time 

Console, rejoice, whene’er we turn the leaf 

To read them? All, wherever in the scale, 
Have, be they high or low, or rich or poor, 
Inherit they a sheep-hook or a sceptre, 

Much to be grateful for ; but most has he, 

Born in that middle sphere, that temperate zone, 
Where knowledge lights his lamp, there most secure, 
And wisdom comes, if ever, she who dwells 
Above the clouds, above the firmament, 
That seraph sitting in the heaven of heavens. 

What men most covet, wealth, distinction, power, 

Are baubles nothing worth, that only serve ae 
To rouse us up, as children in the schools o 
Are roused up to exertion. 'The reward 

Is in the race we run, not in the prize ; 

And they, the few, that have it ere they earn it, 
‘Having, by favour or inheritance, 

These dangerous gifts placed in their idle hands, 


ay 


W. 
214 ITALY. 


And all that should await on worth well-tried, 
All in the glorious days of old reserved 

For manhood most mature or reverend age, 
Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride 
That glows in him who on himself relies, 
Entering the lists of life. , 


ITALY: 915 


PESTUM. 


They stand between the mountains and the sea, 
Awful memorials, but of whom we know not! - 
Theseaman, passing, gazes from the deck. 

The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy. cloak, 

Points to the work of magic and‘nioves on. 

Time was they stood along the crowded street; 
Temples of gods! and on'their ample steps 

What various habits,warious tohgues beset 

The brazen gates for prayer and sacrifice ! 

Time was perhaps the third was sought for justice ; 
And here the accuser stood, and theré the accused ; 
And here the judges sate, and heard, and judged. 
All silent now !—as in the ages past, 

Trodden under foot and mingled, dust with dust. 

How many centuries did the sun go round 
From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea, 
While, by some spell rendered invisible, 

Or, if approached, approached by him alone 
Who saw as though he saw not, they remained 


216 «ITALY. : : ie 

As in the darkness of a sepulchre, “ae ae 

Waiting the appointed time! All, all within — 

Proclaims that Nature had resumed her right, 

And taken to herself what man renounced ; 

No cornice, triglyph, or worn abacus, 

But with thick ivy hung or branching fern ; 

Their iron-brown o’erspread with brightest verdure. 
From my youth mpyeed have I longed to tread. 

This classic ground—And am I here at last ? 

Wandering at will through the long porticoes, 

And catching, as through some, majestic grove, 

Now the blue ‘ocean, and now, chaos-like, 

Mountains and mountain- gulfs, and, half-way up, 

Towns like the living rock from which they grew ? 

A cloudy region, black and desolate, 

Where once a slave withstood a world in arms.* 
The air is sweet with violets, running wild 

Mid broken friezes and fallen capitals ; 

Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts, 

Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost, © 

(Turning to thee, divine philosophy, 

Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul,) 

Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago, 


* Spartacus. See Plutarch in the Life of Crassus. 


4° ITALY. 217 
For Athens ; when a ship, if northeast winds 
Blew from the Pestan gardens, slacked her course. 
On as he moved along the level shore, 
These temples, in their splendour eminent 
Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers, 
_ Reflecting back the radiance. of the west, 
Well might he dream of glory! Now, coiled up, 
The serpent sleeps within them ; the she-wolf 
Suckles her young: and, as alone I stand 
In this, the nobler pile, the elements 
Of earth and air its only floor and covering, 
How solemn i is the stillness! No othing stirs 
' »Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round 
On the panels pediment to sit and sing ; 
¥0r the green lizard rustling through the grass, 
And up the fluted shaft with short quick spring, 
“To vanish in the chinks that time has made. 
In such an hour as this, the sun’s broad disk 
Seen at his setting, and a flood of light 
Filling the courts of these old sanctuaries, 
(Gigantic shadows, broken and confused, 
Athwart the innumerable columns flung, ) 
In such an hour he came, who-saw and told, 
Led by the mighty genius of the place. 
15 


= 4 < 
218 Mer rss eo * 

Walls of some capital city first appeared, 
Half razed, half sunk, or scattered as in scorn; 
—And what within them ? what but in the midst 
These three in more than their original grandeur, 
And, round about, no stone upon another ? 
As if the spoiler had fallen back in fear, 
And, turning, left them to the elements. 

Tis said a stranger in the days of old, 
(Some say a Dorian, some a Sybarite; 
But distant things are ever lost in clouds,) 
"Tis said a stranger came, and, with his.plough, 
Traced out the site ; and Posidonia rose, 
Severely great, Neptune the tutelar god ; 
A Homer’s language murmuring in her streets, 
And in her haven many a mast from Tyre. 
Then came another, an unbidden guest. 
He knocked and entered with a train in arms; 
And all was changed, her very name and language! 
The Tyrian merchant, shipping at his door 
lvory, and gold, and silk, and frankincense, 
Sailed as before, but, sailing, cried, «* For Peestum |” 
And now a Virgil, now an Ovid sung 
Pestum’s twice-blowing roses ; while, within, 


Parents and children mourned—and, every year, 


* ITALY % 219 


(Twas on the day of some old festival,) 

Met to give way to tears, and once again, 

Talk in the ancient tongue of things gone by.* 

At length an Arab climbed the battlements, 

Slaying the sleepers in the dead of night ; 

And from all eyes the glorious vision fled ! 

Leaving a place lonely and dangerous, 

Where whom the robber spares, a deadlier foet 

Strikes at unseen—and at a time when Joy 

Opens the heart, when summer skies are blue, 

And the clear air is soft and delicate ; 

For then the demon works—then with that air 

The thoughtless wretch drinks in a subtle poison 

Lulling to sleep ; and, when he sleeps, he dies. 
But what are these still standing in the midst ? 

The earth has rocked beneath ; the thunder-stone 

Passed thro’ and thro’, and left its traces there ; 

Yet still they stand as by some unknown charter ! 

Oh, they are nature’s own! and, as allied 

To the vast mountains and the eternal sea, 

They want no written history; theirs a voice 


For ever speaking to the heart of man! 


* Atheneus, xiv. t The Malaria. 





AMALFI. 


He who sets sail from Naples, when the wind 
Blows fragrance from Posilipo, may soon, 
Crossing from side to side that beautiful lake, 
Land underneath the cliff, where once among - 
The children gathering shells along the shore, 
One laughed and played, unconscious of his fates? ; 
His to drink deep of sorrow, and, through life, 
To be the scorn of them that knew him not, 


Trampling alike the giver and his gift, ne ‘ 


The gift a pearl precious, inestimable, 
A lay divine, a lay of love and war, 
To charm, ennoble, and from age to age, 
Sweeten the labour, when the oar was plied 
Or on the Adrian or the Tuscanietn. 

There would I linger—then go forth again, 
And hover round that region unexplored, 
Where to Salvator (when, as some relate, 


* Tasso. Sorrento, his birth-place, is on the south side of the gulf 
of Naples. 

















tmted by Sartain. 


Re 
c 


Stothard Eng 


ITALY. ; “- 991 





By chance or choice he led a bandit’s life, 

sed Yet oft withdrew, alone and unobserved, $i. 

To wander through those awful solitudes) 

Nature revealed herself. Unveiled she stood, 

In all her wildness, all her majesty, 

As in that elder time, ere man, was made. 
There would I linger—then go | forth again; 

And he who steers due east, doubling the cape, 

Discovers, in a crevice of the rock, is 

The fishing-town, Amalfi. Haply there — 

A heaving bark, an anchor on the. strand, a es 

May tell him what it is ; but what it was, 





Cannot be told so soon. 
* The time has been, 

When on the quays along the Syrian coast, a 

"T'was asked and eagerly, at break of dawn, 

«¢ What ships are from Amalfi?” when her coins, 

Silver and gold, circled from clime to clime ; 

From Alexandria southward to Sennaar, 


And-eastward, through Damascus and Cabul 





And Samarcand, to thy great wall, Cathay. 

Then were the nations by her wisdom swayed ; 
And every crime on every sea was judged 
According to her judgments. In her port 


a hy bak 
LP ne Be 
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- = sy eee Pas > (* 9 % 
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> 


999 ITALY. 


Prows, strange, uncouth, from Nile and Niger met, 
People of various feature, various speech ; 
And in their countries many a house of prayer, 
And many a shelter, where no shelter was, — 
And many a well; like Jacob’s in the wild, 
Rose at her bidding. Then in Palestine, 
By the way-side, in sober grandeur stood 
A hospital, that, night and day, received 
The pilgrims of the west ; and, when ’twas asked, 
“Who are the noble founders?” every tongue 
At once replied, “«’ The merchants of Amalfi.” 
. That hospital, when Godfrey scaled the walls, 
Sent forth its holy men in complete steel ; 
And hence, the cowl relinquished for the helm, 
That chosen band, valiant, invincible, 
So long renowned as champions of the cross, 
In Rhodes, in Malta. 

For three hundred years, 
There, unapproached but from the deep, they sich 
Assailed for ever, yet from age to age 
Acknowledging no master. From the deep 
They gathered in their harvests ; bringing home 
In the same ship, relics of ancient Greece,. 
That land of glory where their fathers lay, 


/ ' cae P . ¥ me 
e ; 


ITALY. 993 


Grain from the golden vales of Sicily, 
And Indian spices. When at length they fell, 
Losing their liberty, they left mankind 
A legacy, compared with which the wealth 
Of eastern kings—what is it in the scale? 
The mariner’s compass. 
They are now forgot, 

And with them all they did, all they endured, 
Struggling with fortune. When Sicardi stood 
On his high deck, his falchion in his hand, 
And, with a shout like thunder, cried, ‘“‘ Come forth, 
And serve me in Salerno!” forth they came, 
Covering the sea, a mournful spectacle ; 
The women wailing, and the heavy oar 
Falling unheard. Not thus did they return, 
The tyrant slain ; though then the grass of years 
Grew in their streets. 

There now to him who sails 
Under the shore, a few white villages, 
Scattered above, below, some in the clouds, 
Some on the margin of the dark blue sea, 
And glittering through their lemon groves, an- 

nounce 


The region of Amalfi. Then, half-fallen, 


“te ge Wha ls ee AEM Oe Pea Ra ee 
ia * 
4 . * 


sad 





at 224 og Si bi 


A lonely watch-tower on ‘the precipice, 4 1a 
_ Their ancient land-mark, comes. Long m: ‘it last, 

And to the seaman in a distant age, 

Though now he little thinks how large his debt, 

Serve for their monument ! 


~%, 





MONTE CASSINO. 


“ What hangs behind that curtain?” ‘ Wouldst 
thou learn? 

If thou art wise, thou wouldst not. *Tis by some 

Believed to be his master-work, who looked 

Beyond the grave, and on the chapel wall, 

As though the day were come, were come and past, 

Drew the Last Judgment.* But the wisest err. 

He who in secret wrought, and gave it life, 

For life is surely there and visible change, 

Life, such as none could of himself impart, 

(They who behold it, go not as they came,, 

But meditate for many and many a day,) 

Sleeps in the vault beneath. We know not much; 

But what we know, we will communicate. 

Tis in an ancient record of the house ; 

And may it make thee tremble lest thou fall! 
Once—on a Christmas eve—ere yet the roof 

Rung with the hymn of the Nativity, 


* Michael Angelo. 





” 6 996 SEPALS 
There came a stranger to the convent gate, — 
At d asked admittance ; ever and anon, 
As if he sought what most he feared to find, 
Looking behind him. When within the walls, - 
These walls so sacred and inviolate, 
Still did he look behind him; oft and long, 
With curling, quivering lip, and haggard eye, 
Catching at vacancy. Between the fits, 
For here, ’tis said, he lingered while he lived, 
He would discourse and with a mastery, 
A charm by none resisted, none explained, 
Unfelt before ; but when his cheek grew pale, 
All was forgotten. Then, howe’er employed, 
He would break off, and start as if he caught 
A glimpse of something that would not be gone ; 
And turn and gaze, and shrink into himself, 
As though the fiend was there, and, face to face, 
Scowled o’er his shoulder. : 
| Most devout he was; 
Most unremitting in the services ; 
Then, only then, untroubled, unassailed ; 
And, to beguile a melancholy hour, 
Would sometimes exercise that noble art 
He learnt in Florence ; with a master’s hand, | 


Poy ore ae ae *y 
*~ ’ . ae 
5 ITALY. | 207 | 


As to this day the sacristy attests, 
Painting the wonders of the Apocalypse. og 
At length he sunk to rest, and in his cell ~ 

Left, when he went, a work in secret done, 

The portrait, for a portrait it must be, 

That hangs behind the curtain. Whence he drew, 
None here can doubt ; for they that come to catch 
The faintest glimpse—to catch it and be gone, 
Gaze as he gazed, then shrink into themselves, 
Acting the self-same part. But why ’twas drawn, 
Whether, in penance, to atone for guilt, 

Or to record the anguish guilt inflicts, 

Or haply to familiarise his mind 

With what he could not fly from, none can say, 
For none could learn the burden of his soul.” 


es 
‘ Payee 


) 998 ITALY: 


THE HARPER. 


% ee 
ae 
eo 


It was a harper, wandering with his harp, 
His only treasure ; a majestic man, 
By time and grief ennobled, not subdued ; 
Though from his height descending, day by day, 
And, as his upward look at once betrayed, 
Blind as old Homer. Ata fount he sate, 
Well known to many a weary traveller ; 
His little guide, a boy not seven years old, 
But grave, considerate beyond his years, 
Sitting beside him. Each had ate his crust 
In silence, drinking of the virgin-spring ; 
And now in silence, as their custom was, 
The sun’s decline awaited. 

But the child 

Was worn with travel. Heavy sleep weighed down 
_ His eyelids; and the grandsire, when we came, 
Emboldened by his love and by his fear, 
‘His fear lest night o’ertake them on the road, 
Humbly besought me to convey them both 








tk i sion Nala al Bhi Sd y See a + 
: 3 f 7 é . . 
alae 4 ake BUY i ‘ 


ITALY. 229 


6 


¥ 

A little onward. Such small services 

Who can refuse ?—Not I ; and him who can, 

Blest though he be with every earthly gift, — 

I cannot envy. He, if wealth be his, 

Knows not its uses. ' So from noon till night, 

Within a crazed and tattered vehicle, 

That yet displayed, in old emblazonry, — 

A shield as splendid as the Bardi wear,* 

We lumbered on together; the old man 
_ Beguiling many a league of half its length, ° 

When questioned the adventures of his life, 

And all the dangers he had undergone ; 

His shipwrecks on inhospitable coasts, 

And his long warfare. _ . 
They were bound, he said, 
To a great fair at Reggio ; and the boy, 
Believing all the world were to be there, 

And I among the rest, let loose his tongue, 

And promised me much pleasure. His short trance, 
Short as it was, had, like a charmed cup, 
Restored his spirit, and, as on we crawled, 

Slow as the snail, (my muleteer dismounting, 


And now his mules addressing, now his pipe, 


* See Note. 





930 ITALY. 


And now Luigi,) he poured out his heart, 
Largely repaying me. At length the sun 
wepar ted, setting in a sea of gold ; 
And, as we gazed, he bade me rest assured 
That like the setting would the rising be. 
Their harp—it had a voice oracular, 
And in the desert, in the crowded street, 
Spoke when consulted. Ifthe treble chord 


Twanged shrill and clear, o’er hill and dale they 


* went, 


The grandsire, step by step, led by the child. ‘ 


And not a rain-drop from a passing cloud 


Fell on their garments. ‘Thus it spoke to-day ; 


Inspiring joy, and, in the young one’s mind, 
Brightening a path already full of sunshine. 


J" 


ITALY. 231 


THE FELUCA. Pa 


Day glimmered ; and beyond the precipice, 
(Which my mule followed as in love with fear, 
Or as in scorn, yet more and more inclining 
To tempt the danger where it menaced most,) 
A sea of vapour rolled. Methought we went 
Along the utmost edge of this, our world ; 

But soon the surges fled, and we descried 

Nor dimly, though the lark was silent yet, 

Thy gulf, La Spezzia. Ere the morning gun, 
Ere the first day-streak, we alighted there ; 
And not a breath, a murmur! Every sail 

Slept in the offing. Yet along the shore 

Great was the stir; as at the noontide hour, 
None unemployed. Where from its native rock 
A streamlet, clear and full, ran to the sea, 

The maidens knelt and sung as they were wont, __ 
Washing their garments. Where it met the tide, 
Sparkling and lost, an ancient pinnace lay 
Keel upward, and the faggot blazed, the tar 


? ‘hy ™ <a . 
“3 
* 


Fumed from the cauldron; while, beyond the fort, 
Whither I wandered, step by step led on, 

The fishers dragged their net, the fish within 

At every heave fluttering and full of life, 


232 ITALY. 


At every heave striking their silver fins 
’>Gainst the dark meshes. Soon a boatman’s shout 
Re-echoed ; and red bonnets on the beach, “ 
Waving, recalled me. We embarked and left 
That noble haven, where, when Genoa reigned, 
A hundred galleys sheltered—in the day, _ 
When lofty spirits met, and, deck to deck, co 
Doria, Pisani fought ; that narrow field : 
Ample enough for glory. On we went, eh. 
Ruffling with many an oar the crystalline sea, 
On from the rising to the setting sun, 

“gin silence—underneath a mountain-ridge, 
Untamed, untameable, reflecting round 
The saddest purple ; nothing to be seen 

- Of life or culture, save where, at the foot, * 
Some village and its church, a scanty line, 
Athwart the wave gleamed faintly. Fear of ill 
Narrowed our course, fear of the hurricane, 
And that yet greater scourge, the crafty Moor, 
Who, like a tiger prowling for his prey, 


ITALY 233 


Springs and is gone, and on the adverse coast, 

(Where Tripoli and Tunis and Algiers 

Forge fetters, and white turbans on the mole 

Gather, whene’er the crescent comes displayed 
Over the cross, his human merchandise 

To many a curious, many a cruel eye 

| Exposes. Ah, how oft where now the sun 

Slept on the shore, have ruthless scimitars 

Flashed through the lattice, and a swarthy crew 

Dragged forth, ere long to number them for sale, 

- Ere long to part them in their agony, 

Parent and child! How oft where now we rode 

Over the billow, has a wretched son, 

Or yet more wretched sire, grown gray in chains, 

Laboured, his hands upon the oar, his eyes 

- Upon the land—the land that gave him birth; 

And, as he gazed, his homestall through his tears i 

Fondly imagined ; when a Christian ship : 

Of war appearing in her bravery, 

A voice in anger cried, “ Use all your strength!” 
But when, ah when, do they that. can, forbear 

To crush the unresisting? Strange, that men, 

Creatures so frail, so soon, alas, to die, 

Should have the power, the will to make this world 

16 


324 PAL Ys,” 


A dismal prison-house, and life itself, 

Life in its prime, a burden and a curse 

-To him who never wronged them? Who that Be 
breathes . 

Would not, when first he heard it, turn away “i 

As from a tale monstrous, incredible ? CS a 

Surely a sense of our mortality, 

A consciousness how soon we shall be gone, 


Or, if we linger—but a few short years— 


 & 
et 


How sure to look upon our brother’s grave, 
Should of itself incline to pity and love, 
And prompt us rather to assist, relieve, 
Than aggravate the evils each is heir to. 

At length the day departed, and the moon 
Rose like another sun, illumining 
Waters and woods and cloud-capt promontories, 
Glades for a hermit’s cell, a lady’s bower, 


Scenes of Elysium, such as night alone 


Reveals below, nor often—scenes that fled. | 
As at the waving of a wizard’s wand, ‘* 
And left behind them as their parting gift, a 
A thousand nameless odours. All was still ; he 


And now the nightingale her song. poured forth 


*%, 


In such a torrent of heart-felt delight, 














‘ i 4 ‘/~* F 
* ITABY. * R85 fa 
=. eae .” ; 


So fast it flowed, her tongue so voluble, : 

As if she thought her hearers would be gone 

'- Ere half was told. ’T'was where in the northwest, 
Still unassailed and unassailable, 

Thy pharos, Genoa, first displayed itself, 
Burning in stillness on its craggy seat ; 

That guiding star so oft the only one, 

When those now glowing in the azure vault, 
Are dark and silent. “Iwas where o’er the sea, 
For we were now within a cable’s length, 

. Delicious gardens hung ; green galleries, 

And marble terraces in many a flight, 

And fairy arches flung from cliff to cliff, 
Wildering, enchanting ; and, above them all, 

A palace, such as somewhere in the east, 

In Zenestan or Araby the blest, 

Among its golden groves and fruits of gold, 

And fountains scattering rainbows in the sky, 
Rose, when Aladdin rubbed the wondrous lamp ; 
Such, if not fairer ; and, when we shot by, 

A scene of revelry, in long array 

As with the radiance of a setting sun, 

The windows blazing. But we now approached 


A city far-renowned ; and wonder ceased. 


236 3 ITALY. 


GENOA. 


This house was Andrea Doria’s. Here he lived ; 
And here at eve relaxing, when ashore, © 
Held many a pleasant, many a grave discourse 
With them that sought him, walking to and fro 
As on his deck. "Tis less in length and breadth 
Than many a cabin in a ship of war ; 
But ’tis of marble, and at once inspires 
The reverence due to ancient dignity. 

He left it for a better; and ’tis now 
A house of trade, the meanest merchandise 
-Cumbering its floors. Yet, fallen as it is, 
Tis still the noblest dwelling—even in Genoa ! 
And hadst thou, Andrea, lived there to the last, 
Thou hadst done well; for there is that without, 
That in the wall, which monarchs could not give, 
Nor thou take with thee, that which says aloud, 
It was thy country’s gift to her deliverer. 

"Tis in the heart of Genoa, (he who comes, 
Must come on foot,) and in a place of stir; 
Men on their daily business, early and late, 
Thronging thysuery threshold. But when there, 


"svi 
aS 


ITALY. 237 


Thou wert among thy fellow-citizens, 
Thy children, for they hailed thee as their sire ; 
And on a spot thou must have loved, for there, 
Calling them round, thou gav’st them more than life, 
Giving what, lost, makes life not worth the keeping. 
There thou didst do indeed an act divine; 
Nor couldst thou leave thy.door or enter in, 
Without a blessing on thee. 
Thou art now 

Ft among them. Thy brave mariners, 
They who had fought so often by thy side, 
Staining the mountain-billows, bore thee back; 
And thou art sleeping in thy funeral chamber. 
Thine was a glorious course ; but couldst thou there, 
Clad in thy cere-cloth—in that silent vault, 
Where thou art gathered to thy ancestors— 
Open thy secret heart, and tell us all, 
Then should we hear thee with a sigh confess, 
A. sigh how heavy, that thy happiest hours 
Were passed before these sacred walls were left, 
Before the ocean-wave thy wealth reflected, 
And pomp and power drew envy, stirring up 
The ambitious man,* that in a perilous hour 
Fell from the plank. 

* Fiesco. 


a 


Me 


238 ITALY. * 


MARCO GRIFFONI. 


War is a game at which all are sure tolose, sooner 
or later, play they. how they will; yet every nation 
has delighted in war, and none more. in their day 


than the little republic of Genoa, whose galleys," 


while she had any, were always burning and sink- 
ing those of the Pisans, the Venetians, the Greeks, 
or the Turks ; Christian and infidel alike to her. 

But experience, when dearly bought, is seldom 
thrown away altogether. A moment of sober reflec- 
tion came at last ; and after a victory the'most splen- 
did and ruinous of any in her annals, she resolved 
from that day and for ever to live at peace with all 
mankind ; having in her long career acquired nothing 
but glory, and a tax on every article of life. 

Peace came, but with none of its blessings. No 
stir in the harbour, no merchandise in the mart or 
on the quay; no song as the shuttle was thrown or 
the ploughshare broke the furrow. : The frenzy had 
left a ete more alarming than itself. Yet ae 





£ 






a =“ + : data 
ro Ye 


ITALY. 239 


Sad 
the prospect on every side growing darker and 
darker, till an old man entered the senate-house on 
his crutches, and all was changed. 
Marco Griffoni was the last of an ancient family, 
a family of royal merchants ; and the richest citizen 
in Genoa, perhaps in Europe. His parents dying 
while yet he lay i in the cradle, his wealth had accu- 
amulated from the year of his birth; and so noble a 
use did he make of it when he arrived at manhood, 
that wherever he went, he was followed by: the 
blessings of the people. He would often say, “I 
hold it only in trust for others ;” but Genoa-was then 
at her old amusement, and the work grew on his 
hands. Strong as he was, the evil he had to strug- 
gle with was stronger than he. . His cheerfulness, 
his alacrity left him ; and, having lifted up his voice 
for peace, he withdrew at once from the sphere of 
life he had moved in—to become, as it were, another 
man. & ; 

From that time, and for full fifty years, he was 
seen sitting, like one of the founders of his house, 
at his desk among his money bags, in a narrow street 
near the. Porto Franco; and he, who in a famine 
had filled the granaries of the state, sending to Si- 

-cily and even to Egypt, now lived: only as for his 
ae though there were none to inherit; giving 


240 ITALY. wil 


no longer to any, but lending to all—to. the rich 
on their bonds and the poor on their pledges; lend- 
ing at the highest rate, and exacting with the 
utmost rigour. ‘No longer relieving the miserable, 
he sought only to enrich himself by their misery ; 
and there he sat in his gown of frieze, till every 
finger was pointed at him in passing, and every 
tongue exclaimed, “ There sits the miser !”” 

But in that character and amidst all that obloquy 
he was still the same as ever, still acting to the best 
of his judgment for the good of his fellow-citizens ; 
and when the measure of their calamities was full, 
when peace had come, but had come to no purpose, 
and the lesson, as he flattered himself, was graven 
deep in their minds, then, but not till then, though 
his hair had long grown gray, he threw off the mask 
and gave up all he had, to annihilate at a blow his 
great and cruel adversaries, those taxes which, 
when excessive, break the hearts of the people; a 
glorious achievement for an individual, though a 
bloodless one, and such as only can be conceived 
possible in a small community like theirs. 

Alas, how little did he know of. human nature! 
How little had-he reflected on the ruling passion 
of his countrymen, so injurious to others, and at 
length so fatal to themselves! ‘Almost instantly 


bd 


ITALY. 241 


they grew arrogant and quarrelsome; almost instant- 
ly they were in arms again; and, before the statue 
was up that had been voted to his memory, every 
tax, if we may believe the historian, was laid on as 
before, to awaken vain regrets and wise resolu- 
tions. 





A FAREWELLS 


And now farewell to Italy—perhaps 

For ever! Yet, methinks, I could not go, 

I could not leave it, were it mine to say, 

‘¢ Farewell for ever!” Many a courtesy, 

That sought no recompense, and met with none 
But in the swell of heart with which it came, 
Have I experienced ; not a cabin-door, 

Go where I would, but opened with a smile ; 
From the first hour, when, in my long descent, 
Strange perfumes rose, rose as to welcome me, 
From flowers that ministered like unseen spirits; 
From the first hour, when vintage-songs broke forth, 
A grateful earnest, and the southern lakes, 
Dazzlingly bright, unfolded at my feet ; 

They that receive the cataracts, and ere long 
Dismiss them, but how changed—onward to roll 
From age to age in silent majesty, > 
Blessing the nations, and reflecting round 


The gladness they inspire. 


* Written at Susa, May 1, 1822. 


i * | Frey? ae 243 


Gentle or rude, 

No scene of life but has contributed 
Much to remember—from the Polesine,. 
Where, when the south wind blows, and clouds on 

clouds 
Gather and fall, the peasant freights his boat, 
A sacred ark, slung’ in his orchard-grove ; 
Mindful to migrate when the king of floods* 
Visits his humble dwelling, and the keel, 
Slowly uplifted over field and fence, 
Floats on a world of waters—from that low, 
That level region, where no echo dwells, 
Or, if she comes, comes in her saddest plight, 
Hoarse, inarticulate—on to where the path 
Is lost in rank luxuriance, and to breathe 
Is to inhale distemper, if not death ; 
Where the wild boar retreats, when hunters chafe, 
And, when the day-star flames, the buffalo-herd, 
Afflicted, plunge into the stagnant pool, 
Nothing discerned amid the water-leaves, 
Save here and there the likeness of a head, 
Savage, uncouth ; where none in human shape 
Come, save the herdsman, levelling his length 
Of lance with many a cry, or, Tartar-like, 

* The Po. | 





244 ag SLY: 


Urging his steed along the distant hill . 
As from a danger. There, but not to rest, 
I travelled many a dreary league, nor turned 
(Ah! then least willing, as who had not been?) 
When in the south, against the azure sky, 
- Three temples rose in soberest majesty, 
The wondrous work of some heroic race.* 

But now a long farewell! Oft, while I live, 
If once again in England, once again 
In my own chimney-nook, as night steals on, 
With half-shut eyes reclining, oft, methinks, ~ 
While the wind blusters, and the pelting rain 
Clatters without, shall I recall to mind 
The scenes, occurrences, I met with here, 
And wander.in Elysium; many a note 
Of wildest melody, magician-like 
. Awakening; such as the Calabrian horn, — 
Along: the mountain-side, when all is til 
Pours forth at folding time ; and many a shane, 
Solemn, sublime, such as at midnight flows | 
From the full choir, when richest harmonies 
Break the deep silence of thy glens, La Cava ; 
To him who lingers there with listening ear, 
Now lost and now descending as from heaven ! 


2> 
* The temples of Pestum. 


+’ 


NOTES. 


Page 10, line 4. As on that Sabbath-eve when he arrived, 
‘ J’arrive essouffié, tout en nage; le cur me bat, je vois 

de loin les soldats 4 leur poste ; j’accours, je crie d’une voix 

étouffée. I] étoit trop tard,’ See Les Confessions. L. 1. 


P.10,1.9. Hesate him down and wept—wept till the morning, 
“* Liines of eleven syllables occur almost in every page of 
Milton; but though they are not unpleasing, they ought 
not to be admitted into heroic poetry; since the narrow 
limits of our language allow us no other distinction of epic 
and tragic measures.”—Johnson. : 
It is remarkable that he used them most at last. In the 
Paradise Regained they occur oftener than in the Paradise 
Lost in the proportion of ten to one; and let it be remem- 
bered that they supply us with another close, another ca- 
dence ; that they add, as it were, a string to the instrument ; 
and, by enabling the poet to relax at pleasure, to rise and. 
fall with his subject, contribute what is most wanted, com- 
pass, variety. se Ba go Mas Lin Supt 
Shakspeare seems to have delighted in them, and in 
some of his soliloquies has used them four and ‘five times 
in succession; an example I have not followed in mine. 
As in the following instance, where the subject is solemn 
beyond all others. a a 
To beor not to be, &c.. ae og 
They come nearest to the flow: of an unstudied eloquence, 
and should therefore be used in the drama; but why exclu- 
sively ? Horace, as we learn from himself, admitted the 
Musa Pedestris in his happiest hours, in those when he 
was most at his ease ; and we cannot regret her visits. To, 
her we are indebted for more than half he has left us; nor 
was she ever at his elbow in greater dishabille, than when 
he wrote the celebrated Journey to Brundusium. 





\ 


ae 
us ¥ 


246 _ NOTES. 


| P. 12, 1. 6—Like him of old 
“To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought,” says 
Gibbon, “ the reader, like myself, should. nave apoe the 
_ windows of his library, that incomparable landscape.” 


P.12,1.9. That winds beside the mirror of all beauty, 
' There is no describing in words ; meant liowine Ines 
written on the spot, and may serve perhaps to recall 
of my readers what they have seen a emia 
try. ; Svan’ eS 

















% 
4 ay 
we 


Bie ee aes a 4 oe 
__ Tlove to watch In silenee till the sun tls 
Sete; and Mont Blanc, arrayed in crimson and gold, 
Flings his broad shadow half across the lake; — . 
Thats adow, though it comes through pathless tracts 
er, and o’er Alp and desert drear, 
! s bright, less glorious than himself. 
, while we gaze, ’tis gone! - And now he shines 
bs ie Li e burnished silver; all, below, the night’s. 
Such moments are most precious. Yet there are 
Others, that follow fast, more precious still ; 
When once again he changes, once again 
Clothing himself in grandeur all his own ; 
» When, like a ghost, shadowless, colourless, . 
He melts away into the heaven of heavens; % 
Hlimself alone revealed, all lesser things 
As though they were not! 


s 


P. 15,1.10. Two dogs of grave demeanour welcomed me, 
Berri, so remarkable for his sagacity, was dead. His 
skin is stuffed, and is preserved in the Museum of Berne. 


P. 17,1.14. But the Bise blew cold ; i 
The northeast wind. This description was written in 
June, 1816. 


P. 19,1. 4. St. Bruno’s once— : 
It was indebted for its foundation to a miracle; as every 
guest may learn there from a little book that lies on the 
table in bis cell, the cell allotted-to him by the fathers. 
“In this year the canon died, and, as.all believed, in the 
odour of sanctity: for who in his life had’ been so holy, in 
his death so happy? But false are the judgments of men ; 
as the event showcth. For when the hour of his funeral 
had arrived, when the mourners: had entered the church 
the bearers set down the bier, and every voice was lifted 
up in the Miserere, suddenly and as none knew how, the 
lights were extinguished, and the anthem stopt! A dark- 
. ei a oer 
. is a 





NOTES. Dae 


ness succeeded, a silence as of vr graves and these words 
came in sorrowful accents from. the. lips of the dead. “I 
am summoned before a just God !—A just God judgetp me 
—I am condemned by a just God 1992 

“Tn the church,” says the legend, *¢ there ‘stood a young 
man with his han¢ s clasped in prayer, who from that time 
resolved to. raw into the dager It was ne wha we 
now invoke as St. Bruno.” - aie 


B19, 1. 16 shat house so rich of ld, ° 
Cartons. Rhee ale ae 

The words of Ariosto. me 5 i Se 
.% * Ricca—e cortese a chiunque- vi venia. m= 
The valley was formerly called Acqua Bat. a, 


P. 20,1.15. Bread to the hungry tne 
In the course of the year they entertain from thi 












-. thirty-five thousand travellers. Le Pére Biselz, Prieur, 


P. 22,1.14. Dessaix, who turned the scale. 
“Of all the generals I ever had under me, Dessaix pos- 
sessed the greatest talents. He loved glory for Ne " 


Pp, 24,1.14. And gathered from above, bette around, 

The author of Lalla Rookh, a poet of such singular feli- 
city as to give.a lustre to all he touches, has written a song 
on this subject, called the Chrystal-hunters. » 


"| P. 24,116. Once, nor long before, % 


M. Ebel mentions an escape almost as miraculous. 


P, 29, 1. 15.—a wondrous monument 
Almost every. mountain of any rank or condition has 
such a bridge: The most celebrated in this country is on 
the Swiss side of St. Gothard. 


P. 42,1.5. Before the great Mastino 
Mastino de ie Scala, the Lord of Verona. Cortusio, the 
ambassador and historien, saw him so surrounded. L. 6. 
This house had been always open to the unfortunate. In 
the days of Can Grande all were welcome; poets, philoso- 
phers, artists, warriors. Each had his apartment, each a 
separate table; and at the‘hour of dinner musicians and 
jesters went from room to room. Dante, as we learn from 
himself, found an asylum there. 


™~ 


248 4s NOTES. 


* a primo tuo r e’ ell 
he wv Legein Cicada tee eo 7 
‘ mie the Che’n su la scala porta il santo uccello. 
©) Their tombs in the public street carry us back into the 
_ times of barbarous virtue; nor less so do those of the Car- 
"Yara princes a ; Padua, though less singular and striking i in 
- themselves. Francis Carrara, the Elder, used often to visit 
‘Petrarch i in his small house at Arqua, and followed him on 
cal - foot to his grave. 


+P. 43.1.9. My omelet, and a flagon of hill-wine, 
~ Originally thus : 
My omelet, and a trout, that, as the sun 
Shot his last ray through Zanga’ s leafy grove, 
Leaped ata golden fly, had happily 
Fled from al! eyes; 
Zanga is the name of a beautiful villa near Bergamo, in 
which Tasso finished his tragedy 7 Torrismondo. It still 
belongs to his family. 


P. 43, 1. 14. Bartering my bread and salt for empty praise. 
After 1. 14, in the MS. 


That evening, tended on with verse ana song, 

I closed my eyes in heaven, but not to sleep; 

A Columbine, my nearest neighbour there, 

In her great bounty, at the midnight hour 

Bestowing on the world two Harlequins. 

Chapelle and Bachamont fared no better at Salon, a cause 

d’une comédienne, qui s’avisa d’accoucher de deux petits 
comédiens. 


P. 44, 1. 3. And shall I sup where Juliet at the Masque 

The old palace of the Cappaletti, with its uncouth balco- 
ny and irregular windows, is still standing in a lane near 
the Market-place ; and what Englishman can behold it with 
indifference ? 

When we enter Verona, we forget ourselves, and are al- 
most inclined to. say with Dante, 

Vieni a veder Montecchi, e Cappelletti. 


_P. 44,1. 6. Such questions hourly do I ask myself ; 

‘It has been observed that in Italy the memory sees more 
- than the eye. Scarcely a stone is turned up that has not 
_ '»some‘ historical association, ancient or modern; that may 
not be said to have gold under it: 


» 


NOTES. ‘ 


P. 44, 1.18. Would they had loved. thee less, &c. Bs: 
From the sonnet of Filicaja. Italia! Italia! &e. a, 


P. 45,1.1. Twice hast thou lived already ; gt Se 
Twice shown among the nations of the world, ; 
‘All our travellers, from Addison downward, have dili- 
gently explored the monuments of her former « existence ; _ 
while those of her latter have, comparatively speaking, es- 
caped observation. If I cannot supply the deficiency, I | . 
will not follow their example ; and happy should I be, if, by” 
an intermixture of verse and prose, of prose illustrating the — 
verse and verse embellishing the prose, I could furnish my 
countrymen on their travels with a pocket companion. 


P. 46,1. 1. - In this neglected mirror , 
This is the only instance, with which Iam acquainted, 
of a ghost'in Italy since Brutus sat in his tent. 


P. 49, 1.17. Issuing forth, 
An old huntsman of the family met her in the haze of 


' the morning, and never went out again. 


She is still known by the name of Madonna Bianca. 


P. 50,1.16. Still glowing with the richest hues of art, 

Several were painted by Giorgione and Titian; as, for 
instance, those of the. Fondaco de’ Tedeschi and “the Ca’ 
Grimani. See Vasari. 


P. 51,:L Aa-the tower of Ezzelin— 
Now an observatory. On the wall there isa long inscrip- 
tion : “ Piis carcerem adspergite lacrymis, ” &e. 
Ezzelino is seen by Dante in the river of blood. 


P. 51,1. 7. Him or his horoscope ; 

Bonatti was the great astrologer of that day; and all 
the little princes of Italy contended for him. It was 
from the top of the tower of Forli that he gave his sig- 
nals to. Guido Novello. At the first touch of a bell the 
count put on his armour; at the second he mounted his 
horse, and at the third iuavened out to battle. His victo- 
ries were ascribed to Bonatti; and not perhaps without 
reason. How many triumphs were due to the sooth-sayers 
of old Rome! - ; r 


. P. 51, 1. 21.—the lagging mules ; 
The passage boats are drawn up and down the Brea. Figs 
17 . 


*, 


950 ss NOTES. 


P. 52, 1.2. That child of fun and frolic, Arlecchino. 

A pleasant instance of his wit and agility was exhibited 
some years ago on the stage at Venice. 

“The stutterer was in an agony; the word was inexora- 
ble. It was to no purpose-that Harlequin suggested ano- 
ther and another. At length, in a fit of despair, he pitched 
his head full in the dying man’s stomach, and the word 
bolted out of his mouth to the most distant part of the house. oo 
—WSee Moore’s View of Society in Italy. ; 


P. 53, 1. 8. 2 vast metropolis, 

“T love,” says a traveller, “to contemplate, as I float 
along, that multitude of palaces and churches, which are. 
congregated and pressed as on a vast raft.”—‘t And who 
can forget his walk through the Merceria, where the night- 
ingales give you their melody from shop to shop, so that, 
shutting your eyes, you would think yourself in’ some fo- 
rest-glade, when indeed you are all the while in the middle 
of the sea? Who can forget his prospect from the great 
tower, which once, when gilt, and when the sun struck — 
upon it, was to be descried by ships afar off ; or his visit to 
St. Mark’s church, where you see nothing, tread on no. 
thing, but what is precious; the floors all agate, jasper ; 
the roof mosaic; the aisle hung with the banners of the 
subject cities; the front and its five domes affecting you as 
the work of some unknown people.? Yet all this will pre- 
sently pass away ; the waters will close over it; and’ they, 
that come, row about in vain to determine exactly where it 
stood.” 


P. 58,1. 3.. Playing at Mora 
A national game ‘of great antiquity, and most probably 
the “ micare digitis” of the Romans. 


P. 61, 1.13. The brass is gone, the porphyry remains, 

They were placed in the floor as memorials. 'The brass 
was engraven with the words addressed by the pope to the 
emperor, “Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis,” &c. 
Thou shalt tread upon the asp and the basilisk: the lion 
and the dragon thou shalt trample under foot. 


P, 61, 1,16, Of the proud pontiff— 
Alexander ILI. He fled in disgnise to Venice, and is said 
to have passed the first night on the steps of San Salvatore. 


NOTES. oe 


The entrance is from the Merceria, near the foot of the 
Rialto; and it is thus recorded, under his escutcheon, in a 
small tablet at the door : Alexandro III. Pont. Max. per- 
noctanti. 


P. 62,1. 8. “Surely those aged limbs have need of rest !” 
See ‘Geoffroy de Villehardouin, in Script. Byzant. T. Xx. 


P. 62, 1. 18.—resounding with their feet, 
See Petrarch’s description of them. and of the tourna- 
ment. Rer. Senil. 1.4, ep. 2. 


P. 63; 1. 7.—some of fair renown 
; From England, 
Recenti victoria exultantes, says Petrarch; alluding, no 
doubt, to the favourable issue of the war in France. ‘This 
festival began on the 4th of August, 1364. 


P. 63, 1.19. And lo, the madness af the carnival, 

Among those the most followed, there was always a 
mask in a magnificent habit, relating marvellous adven- 
tures, and calling himself Messer Marco Millioni. Millioni 
was the name given by his fellow-citizens in his life-time 
to the great traveller Marco Polo. “I have seen him so 
described,” says Ramusio, “in the Records of the Repub- 
lic; and his house has, from that time to this, been ealled 
La ‘Corte del Millioni,” the palace ofthe rich man, the mil- 
lionaire. It is on the canal of S. Giovanni Chrisostomo; 
and, as long as he lived, was much resorted to by the cu- 
rious and the learned. 


P. 63, 1. 24.—the archangel, 

In atto di dar la benedittione, says Sansovino; and per- 
forming the same office as the Triton on the tower of the 
winds at Athens. 


P..64, 1. 8.— the marble stairs 
La Scala de’ Giganti. 


—P. 66, 1. 6.—the canal Orfano, 
_ A deep channel behind the island of S. Giorgio Mag- 
giore. 


P. 66, 1.11. | Yet what 80 gay as Venice? 


“ How fares it with your world ?” says his highness the ’ 


devil to Quevedo, on their first interview in the lower re- 


- 


J 


a 





e re 
252 we NOTES. & . a 
gions. “ Do I prosper there ?”” “ Much as wel I spelieve® 
“ But tell me truly. How is my good. city of Venice? 
Flourishing ?” ‘More than ever.” “'Then. ‘a am bane 
no-apprehension. All must go well.” 


P. 66, 1, 22. « Who were the six we supped with tate A an . 
An allusion to the supper in Candide. c. XXVi. 


P. 67,1. 3. “ Who answered me just es ‘ 


See Schiller’ s Ghost-seer- ci. | a, ai " 
P. 67, 1.7. “ But who moves ‘there, alone among them x. 

See the history of Bragadino, the alchymist, as related 
Daru. Hist. de Venise. c. 28. 

The person that follows was yet more extraordinary, and 
is said to have appeared there in 1687. See Hermippus 
Redivivus. 

“Those who have experienced the advantages which’ all 
strangers enjoy in that city, will not be surprised that one 
who went by the name of Signor Gualdi was admitted into 
the best company, though none knew who or what he was. 
He remained there some months; and three things were 
remarked concerning him—that he had a small but inesti- 
mable collection of ‘pictures, which he readily showed to 
any body—that he spoke on every subject with such a 
mastery as astonished all who heard him—and that he 
never wrote or received any letter, never required any cre- 
dit, or used any bills of exchange, but paid for every thing 
in ready money, and lived respectably, though not splen- 
didly. # 

re This gentleman being one day at. the coffee-house, a 
Venetian nobleman, who was an excellent judge of pictures, 
and who had heard of Signor Gualdi’s collection, expressed 
a desire to.see them ; and his request was instantly granted. 
After contemplating and admiring them for some time, he 
happened to cast his eyes over the chamber door, where 
hung. a portrait of the stranger. The Venetian looked upon 
it, and then upon him. ‘ This is your portrait, sir,’ said 
he Signor Gualdi. The other made no answer but by a 
low bow. ‘ Yet you look,’ he continued, ‘like a man of 
fifty ; and I know this:picture to be of the hand of Titian, 
who has been dead one hundred and thirty years. How is 
this possible?’ ‘It is nut easy,’ said Signor Gualdi 
gravely, ‘to know all things that are possible; but there is 


* 


we § Pei 


. * 
% ~ *xetes. 253 
_ 
certainly no crime in my being like a picture of Titian’s.’ 
The Venetian perceived that he had given offence, and took 
his leave. : 
“Tn the evening he could not forbear mentioning what 
_. _ had passed to some of his friends, who resolved to satisfy 
© themselves the next day by seeing the picture. For this 
- "purpose they went to the coffee-house about the time that 
Signor Gualdi was accustomed to come -there; and, not 
4 ting with him, inquired at his lodginys, where they 
Tearnt that he had set an hour before for Vienna. This affair 
Bs made a great stir at the time.” os 


P. 68, 1.11. All eye, all ear, no where and every where, 

A Frenchman of high rank, who had been robbed at Ve- 
nice, and had complained in conversation of the negligence 
of the police, saying that they were vigilant only as spies 
on the stranger, was on his way back to the Terra Firma, 
when his gondola stopped suddenly in the midst of the 
waves. He inquired the reason; and his gondoliers point- 
ed to a boat witht a red flag, that had just made them a sig- 
nal. It arrived;’and he was called on board. ‘ You are 
the Prince de Craon? ‘Were ‘you not robbed on Friday 
evening ?—I was,—Of what ?—Of five hundred ducats.— 
And where were they ?—In a green purse.—Do you suspect 
any body ?—I do, a servant.—W ould you know him again? 
—Certainly.” The interrogator with his foot turned aside 
an old cloak that lay there; and the prince beheld his purse 
in the hand of a dead man. “Take it, and remember that 
none set their feet again in a country where they have pre- 
sumed to doubt the wisdom of the government.” 


i eg 71, 1]. 12. ~ Then in close converse, 
I am indebted for this thought to some unpublished tra- 
vels by the author of Vathek. iia ; 


P. 72, |. 4.—and he sung, 
As in the time when Venice was herself, 

Goldoni, describing his excursion with the Passalacqua, 
has left. us a lively picture of this class of men. 

We were no sooner in the middle of that. great lagoon 
which encircles the city, than our discreet gondolier drew 
the curtain behind us, and let us float at the will of the 
waves, At length night came on, and we could not tell 
where we were. “ What is the hour?” said I to the gon- 


: 


air Pi, 


254 m NOTES: ' * 


dolier. “I cannot guess, sir’; but, if Ve am not mistaken, it 

is the lover's hour.” “ Let us go home,” I replied ; and he 
turned the prow homeward, singing, as he rowed, the 
twenty-sixth. strophe of the sixteenth canto of the J erusalem > 
Delivered. 


P. 73,1. 5, Nor sought my threshold, 
At Venice, if you have la riva in casa, you step from 
your boat into the hall. See,Rose’s Letters from the North 
of Italy. 


Eta, ts The y young Bianca found her father’s door, 

Bianca Capello. It had been shut, if we may believe the 
novelist Malespini, by a baker’s boy, as. he passed by at 
day-break ; and in her despair she fled with her lover to 
Florence, where he fell by assasination. Her beauty, and 
her love adventure as here related, her marriage afterwards 
with the grand duke, and that fatal banquet at which they 
were both poisoned by’ the carnival, his protest, have, ren- 
dered her history a romance. 


P. 74,1.1. Tt was St. ‘Mary'é eve, - 

This circumstance took place at Venice on the first of 

February, the eve of the feast of the purification of the 
Virgin, A. D. 944, Pietro Candiano, Doge® 


P. 75, 1.13. Her veil, transparent as the gossamer, 

Among the Habiti Antichi, in that: admirable book of 
wood-cuts ascribed to Titian, (A. D. 1590,) there is one 
- entitled Sposa Venetiano a Castello. It was taken from an 
old painting in the Scuola di S. Giovanni Evangelista, and 
by the writer is believed to sl one es the brides 
here described. 


PR. 15, 1.20. That venerable structure 
San Pietro di Castéllo, the patriarchal church of Venice. 


P. 78, 1.15. They had surprised the corsairs where they lay 
In the lagoons of Caorlo. - The creek is still called Jl 
Porto delle Donzelle. 


Lge Re a8 2 Laid at his feet; . 
‘They are described by Evelyn and La Lande ; and were 
to be seen in the treasury of St. Mark very lately. 


P, 80; 1, 1.—the Rialto . 
An English abbreviation. Rialto is the name, not of the 


poe 
y _ NOTES. ‘ 255 


bridge, but of the island from which it is called; and the 
Venetians say il ponte di Rialto, as we say Westminster 
bridge. . : 

In that island is the exchange; and I have often walked 
' there as on classic ground. In the days. of Antonio and 
Bassanio it was second to none. “I sotto-portichi,” says 
Sansovino, writing in 1580; “sono ogni giorno frequentati 
da i mereatanti Fiorentini, Genovesi, Milanesi, Spagnuoli, 
Turchi, e d’altre nationi diverse del mondo, i quali vi con- 
currono in tanta copia, che questa piazza é annoverata fra 
le prime dell’ universo.’ It was there that the Christian 
held discourse with the Jew ; and Shylock refers to it when 
he says, 

Signor Antonio, many a time and oft, — 
_ ° Inthe Rialto you have rated me— 

“ Andiamo a Rialto”—“ L’ora di Rialto”—were .on every 
tongue; and continue so to the’ present day; as we learn 
from the comedies of Goldoni, and particularly from his 
Mercanti.. . 

There is a place adjoining, called Rialto Nuovo; and so 
called, according to Sansovino, perche fu: fabricato dopo il 
vecchio. 


P. 81,1. 4. Twenty are sitting as in judgment there ; 

The council of ten and the Giunta, nel quale, says Sanu- 
to, fi messer lo doge. The Giunta at the first examination 
consisted of ten patricians, at the last of twenty. 

This story and the tragedy-of the Two Foscari were 
published, within a few days of each other, in November, 
1821. 


P. 83, 1.23. That maid at once the noblest, fairest, best, 

She was a Contarini; a name coeval with the republic, 
and illustrated by eight doges.. On the occasion of their 
marriage the Bucentaur came out in its splendour; and a 
bridge of. boats was tlirown across the Canal Grandé for 
the bridegroom and. his retinue of three hundred horse. 
Sanuto dwells with pleasure on the cestliness of the dresses 
and the magnificence of the processions by land and water. 
The tournaments in the place of St. Mark lasted three days, 
and were attended by thirty thousand people. 


P. 84, 1.24. To him whose name, among the greatest now, 
Francesco Sforza. His father, when at workin the field, 


256 NOTES. 


was accosted by some soldiers and asked if he would enlist. 
“Let me throw my mattock at that oak,” he replied, “and 
if it remains. there, I will.” It. remained there ; and the 
peasant, regarding it as a sign, enlisted.. He became sol- 
' dier, general, prince; and his grandson, in the palace at © 
Milan, said to Paulus Jovius, ‘* You behold these guards 
and this grandeur. 1 owe every thing to the branch of an 
oak, the branch that held my grandfather’s mattock.” 


P. 85, 1.5. Ihave transgressed, offended wilfully ; ; 
It was a high crime to solicit’ the intercession of any fo- 
reign prinee. 


P. 87, 1. 17,—the Invisible Three! 
The state inquisitors. For an account of their authority, 
see page 68. 


Pi 89,1. 6. °F found’ him on his knees Aefiere the cross, 
He was at mass.—M. Sanuto. 


1 iP. 90. 1, 27 3 ele wrote it on the tomb 
- Veneno sublatus. The tomb i is in the church of St. Ele- 
na. 


P. 90, 1.4. Among the Lie in his leser-book 
A remarkable instance, among others in the annals of 
Venice, that her princes were merchants, her merchants 
princes. 


P. 90, 1. 16.—the. Pisan, 
Count Ugolino. Inferno, 32. 


P. 94, 1.15. And from that hour have kindred spirits vee 
“ T-visited once more,” says Alfieri, “the tomb of our 
master in love, the divine Petrarch; and there, as at Ra- 
venna, consecrated a day to meditation and verse.” 
He visited also the house; and in the album there wrote 
a sonnet worthy of Petrarch himself. '~ 


O Camaretta, che gia in te chiudesti 
Quel Grande alla cui. fama é angusto il mondo, é&c. 


P. 96, 1.1. Neglect the place where, in a graver mood, 
This ‘village, says Boccaccio, hitherto almost unknown 
even at Padua, is soon to become famous through the - 
world ;.and the sailor on the Adriatic will prostrate himself, 
when he discovers the Euganean hills. “ Among them,” 


NOTES. 257 


will he say, “sleeps the poet who is our glory. Ah, un- 
happy Florence! You neglected him—You deserved him 
not.” ao, aaa ; 


P. 96,1.5. Half-way up 
He built his house, So 
“T have built, among the Euganean hills, a small house, 
decent and proper; in which I hope to-pass the rest of my 
days, thinking always of my dead or absent friends.” 
Among those still living was Boccacio; who is thus men- 
tioned by him in his will. “To Don Giovanni of Certaldo, 
for a winter gown at his evening studies, I leave fifty 

golden florins; truly little enough for so great a man.” 

When the Venetians oyerran the country, Petrarch pre- 
pared. for flight. _“ Write your name over your door,” said 
one of his friends, “ and you will be safe.” “ I am not so 
sure of that,” replied Petrarch, and fled with his books to 
Padua. His books he left to the republic of Venice, laying, 
as it wore, a foundation for the library of St. Mark; but 
they exist no longer. His legacy to Francis Carrara, a 
Madonna painted by Giotto, is still preserved in the cathe- 

dral of Padua. Z 


7 P. 97, 1. 4.—in its chain it hangs 
Affirming itself to be the very bucket which Tassoni in 
his mock heroics has celebrated as the cause of war between 
Bologna and Modena five hundred years ago. 


P. 98, 1.3. °Zis of a lady in her earliest youth, 

This story is, I believe, founded on fact; though the time 
and place are uncertain. Many old houses in England lay 
claim to it. 

Except in this instance and another (p. 123), I have 
every where followed history or tradition; and-I would 
here disburden my conscience in pointing out these excep- 
tions, lest the reader should be misled by them. 


. P, 108, 1. 3.—and what a light broke forth, 
Among other instances of her ascendancy at the close 
of the thirteenth century, it is related that Florence saw 
twelve of her citizens assembled at the court of Boniface 
the eighth, as ambassadors from different parts of Europe 
and Asia. Their names are mentioned in Zoscana Illus- 
trata. 


258 : NOTES. 


te * 
P. 108, 1.8. In this chapel wrought 
A chapel of the holy virgin in the churel’ of the Carmel- 
ites. It is adorned with his paintings, and all the great 
artists of Florence studied there; Lionardo da Vinci, Fra 
eres Andrea del Sarto, Michael Angelo, Raphael, 
Cc. 
He had no stone, no inscription, says one of his biogra- 
Phers, for he was thought little of in his lifetime. 
Se alcun cercasse i] marmo, 0 il nome mio, 
La Chiesa e if mario, una capella e i} nome. 
It.was there that Michael Angelo received the blow on 
his face. See Vasari, and Cellini. 


P.109, 1.4. The seat of stopp that runs along the wall, 

It exists no longer, the wall having been taken down ; 
but enough of him remains elsewhere. Boccaccio delivered 
his a on the Divina Commedia in the.church of 8. 
Stefano 


P. 109, 1. 5.—the belfry-tower, 
It was designed by Giotto, as we read in his epitaph. 


P..109, 1. 12, Many a transgressor sent to his account 
Inferno. 33. A more dreadful vebealy for.satire cannot 
well be coapekineel. 


P.110,1.1. That they might serve to be the gates of heaven, 
A saying of Michael Angelo. , They are the work of 


_ Lorenzo Ghiberti. 


P. 110, 1.15. Nor then forget that chamber of the dead, 
The Chapel de’ Depositi, in which are the tombs of the 
Medici, by Michael Angelo. - 


P.111, 1:1. That is the Duke Lorenzo. “Mark him well. 
He ied early; living only to become the father of Ca- 
therine de Medicis. Had an evil spirit assumed the human 
shape to propagate mischief, he could not have done better. 
The statue is larger than the life, but not so large as to 
shock belief. It is the most real and unreal ea that ever 
came from the‘chisel. 


P.111.1.10. . On that thrice hallowed day, 
The day of All Souls. Il di de Morti. 


. 


& ae 


NOTES. tes 959 


P.111,1.17. Jt must be known—the writing on the wall 
Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor! 
Perhaps there is nothing in language more affecting than 


his last testament. It is addressed “To God, the Deli- — 


verer,” and was found steeped in his blood. 


P. 114, 1. 12.—she who bore them sak. 
of the children. that survived her, one fell by a brother, 
one by a husband, and a third murdered his wife. But that 
family was soon to become extinct. It is some consolation 


to reflect that their country did not go unrevenged for the © 


calamities which they had brought upon her. How many 
of them died by the hands of each other! . 


P. 116, 1. 11.—drawn on the wall 
By Vasari, who attended him on this occasion. 
- Jets Thuanus de Vita oH i. 


P. 116, 1.14. From the sad looks of him oh could have told, 
It was given out that they had died of a contagious fever ; 


and funeral orations were publicly pronounced in their 


honour. . 

Alfieri has written a tragedy on the subject; if it may 
be said so, when he has altered sO ae the story and 
the characters. 


F. 117, 1. 2.—Cimabuée 

He was the father of modern painting, and the master of 
Giotto, whose talent he discovered inthe way here alluded 
to. 

“ Cimabud stood still, and, having considered the boy 
and his work, he asked him if he would go and live with 
him at Florence. To which the boy answered that, if his 
father was willing, he would go with all his heart. »_Va. 
Sart. 

Of Cimabué little now remains at Florence, except his 
celebrated Madonna, larger than the life, in Santa Maria 
Novella. It was painted, according to Vasari, in a garden 
near Porta S. Piero, and when finished, was carried to the 
church in solemn procession with trumpets before it. The 
garden lay without the walls; and such was the rejoicing 
there on the occasion, that the suburb received the name of 
Borgo Allegri, a name it still bears, though now a itis of 
the city. 


260 | NOTES. 





| P/117, Lb 11. ‘Beautiful Florence, ey 
It is somewhere mentioned that Michael Angelo when 
he set out from Florence to build the dome of St. Poter’ 85 
turned his horse round in the road to contemplate once 
more that of the cathedral, as it rose in the gray of the 
morning from among the pines and cypresses of the city, 
and that he said after a pause, “Come te non vogliot Me- 
glio di te non. posso!* He never indeed spoke of it but with 
admiration; and, if we may believe tradition, his tomb by 
his own desire was to be so placed in the Santa Croce as 
that from it might be seen, when the doors of the church 
stood open, that ere work of Bruneleschi. 


P. 118, 7 6, Came out into the meadows ; 

Once, on a bright ‘November morning, I set out and 
traced them, as I conceived, step by step; beginning and 
ending in the church of Santa Maria Novella. It was a 
walk delightful i in itself, and in its associations. . 


P. 118, 1. 13. - Round ihe green hill they went, 

I have here followed Baldelli. It has been said that 
Boccaccio drew from his imagination. But is it likely, 
when he and his readers were. living within a mile or two 
of the spot? ‘Truth or fiction, it furnishes a pleasant pic- 
ture of the manners and amusements. of the Florentines in 
that day. 


P2119, 1.11... The =e banquet by the fountain-side, 
At three o’clock. ‘Three hours after sun-rise, according 
‘ta the old manner of reckoning. 


B. 120, 1. 11.—his lowly roof and scanty farm, 
Now belonging by inheritance to the Rangoni, a Mode- 
nese family. 


P. 120, 1. 19. “Tis his own siescvaee drew it from himself 


See a very interesting letter from Machiavel to Frances- 
co Vettori, dated the 10th of December, 1513. 


P. 121, 1. 12. —sung of old 
. For au green wine ; 
‘La Verdea. It is celebrated uy Rinuccini, Reni, and 


* Like thee I will not build one, Better than thee I cannot. 


5 
> 


is NOTES. 261 
.* 


. 


_ * most of the Tuscan poets; nor is it unnoticed by some of 
ours. °° « ; : “ 
Pp? Say he had been at Rome, and seen the relics, 
y = Drunk your Verdea wine, &c.—Beaumont and Fletcher. 


P. 121, 1.15. Seven years a prisoner at the city-gate 

Galileo came to Arcetri at the close of the year 1633; 
and remained there, while. he lived, by an order of the In- 
quisition. - It is. without the walls, near the Porta Romana. 

He was buried with all honour in the church of the 
Santa Croce. ; 


P.121,1.17. His villa, (jusily was it called the Gem,) 
_ _ Il Giojello.: 
P, 121, 1.23. There, unseen, 

Milton went to Italy in 1638. “There it was,” says he, 
“that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a 
prisoner to the Inquisition.” “Old and blind,” he might 
have said. Galileo, by his own account, became blind in 
December, 1637. Milton, as we learn from the date of Sir 
Henry Wotton’s letter to him, had not left England on the 
18th of April following.—See Tiraboschi, and Wotton’s 
Remains. 


P. 122, 1.19. ‘So near the yellow Tiber’s— 
They rise within thirteen miles of each other. 


P.123,1.10. Hands, clad in gloves of steel, held up imploring, 
It was in this manner that the. first, Sforza went down, 
when he perished in the Pescara, 


P. 125, 1.6. And lo, an afom on that dangerous sea, 

Petrarch, as we learn from himself, was on his way to 
Incisa ; whither his mother was retiring. He was’ seven 
months old at the time. : 

A most extraordinary deluge, accompanied by signs and 
prodigies, happened a few years aftearwards. “On that 
night,” says Giovanni Villani, “a hermit, being at prayer 
in his hermitage above Vallombrosa, heard a furious tramp- 
ling as of many horses ; and, crossing himself and hurrying 
to the wicket, saw a multitude of infernal horsemen, all 
black and terrible, riding by at full speed. When in the 
name of God he conjured some of them to tell him their 
purpose, they replied, ‘“ We are going, if it be his pleasure, 

- to drewn the city of Florence for its wickedness.” ‘ This 


262 NOTES. 


account,” says he, “ was given me by the Abbot of Vallom- 
brosa, who had questioned the holy man Limself.” xi. 2. 


P. 126, 1. 10. Towerless, 
There were the *“ Nobili di pit and the “ Nobili di 
Loggia.” ’ 


P. 127,110. At the bridge-foot ; 

Giovanni Buondelmonte was on the point of marrying 
an Amidei, when a widow of the Donati family made him 
break his engagement-in tho manner here described. 

The Amidei washed away the affront with his blood, at- 
_tacking him, says G. Villani, at the foot of.the Ponte Vec- 

chio, as he was coming leisurely along in his white mantle 
on his white palfrey ; and hence many years of slaughter. 


O Buondelmonte, quanto mal fuggisti ~~ 
Le nozze sue, per: gli altrui conforti '—Dante. 


P. 128,1.3. Ithad been well hadst thot slepl on, Imelda, 
The story is Bolognese, and is told by Cherubino Ghira- 
dacci in his history of Bologna. Her lover was of the 
Guelphic party, her brothers of the Ghibelline; and no 
sooner was this act of violence made known than an enmi- 
ty, hitherto but half-suppressed, broke out into open war. 


a 


The Great Place was a scene of battle and bloodshed for » 


forty successive days; nor was a reconciliation accomplish- 
_ed till six years afterwards, when the families and their 
adherents met there once again, and exchanged the kiss of 
peace before the cardinal legate; as the rival families of 
Florence had already done in the Place of S. Maria Novella. 

Every house on. the-occasion was hung with tapestry and 
garlands of flowers. 


P. 128, 1. 9.—from the wound 
' Sucking the poison, - 
The Saracens had introduced among them the practice 
of poisoning their daggers. 


P.128;1.10. Yer; when bicueie came, 
Worse followed, 

It is remarkable that the noblest works of festa genius 
have been produced in times of tumult; when every man 
was his own master, and all things were open to all. Ho- 
mer, Dante, and Milton appeared in such times; and we 
may add Virgil. 


NOTES. . 263 


P. 129, 1. 7. In every palace was the laboratory, 
As in those of Cosmo I. and his son, Francis.—Sismondi, 
xvi. 205. : 


P. 129,1.15. Cruel Tophana ; ae: . 

A Sicilian, the inventress of many poisons; the most 

célebrated of which, from its transparency, was called Ac- 
quetta, or Acqua Tophana. Sheth 


P. 129, 1.17. A sign infallible of coming ill, . 

The cardinal, Ferdinand de’ Medici, is said to have been 
preserved in this manner by a ring which he wore on his 
finger: as also Andrea, the husband ‘of Giovanna, queen of 
Naples. 


P. 129, 1. 24. One in the floor—now left, alas, unlocked. 
- Il Trabocchetto. See Vocab. degli Accadem. della Crus- 
ca. See also Dict. de l’Académie Francoise. Art. Oubliettes. 


P. 130,1.8. There, at Caiano, 
Poggio-Caiano, the favourite villa of Lorenzo; where he 
often took the diversion of hawking. Pulci sometimes went 
out with him; though, it seems, with little ardour. See La 
Caccia col Falcone, where he is described as missing ; and 
as gone into a wood, to rhyme there. Le 


, P. 130, 1.11. With his wild lay— 
The Morgante Maggiore. He used to recite it at the 
table of Lorenzo in the mannef.of the ancient rhapsodists. 


= 
P. 131, 1.3. Of that old den far wp among the hills, - 

Caffaggiolo, the favourite retreat of Cosmo, “the father 
of his country.” Eleonora di Toledo was stabbed there on | 
the 11th of July, 1576, by her husband Pietro de’ Medici ; 
and on the 16th of the same month Isabella de’ Medici was 
strangled by hers, Paolo Giordano Orsini, at his villa of 
Cerreto. ‘They were at Florence, when they were sent for, 
each in her turn, Isabella under the pretext of a hunting- 
party ; and each in her turn went to die. 

Isabella was one of the most beautiful and accomplished 
women of the age. In the Latin, French, and Spanish lan- 
guages she spoke not only with fluency, but elegance ; and 
in her own she excelled as an improvisatrice, accompany- 
ing herself on the lute. On her arrival at dusk, Paolo pre- 
sented her with two beautiful greyhounds, that she might 


264 NOTES. 


male a trial of their speed in the morning ; and at supper 
was gay beyond measure. When he retired, he sen én 
her into his apartment; and, pressing her ‘tend rly t6 re 





bosom, slipped a cord round her neck. She w ried at 
‘loren: ith great pomp; but at her burial, 
thelerirs divulged itself. Her face was black on : 
Eleonora appears to have had a presentiment. of her fate. 4 






She went when required; but, before she set out, took leave 
of her son, thee a child, weeping long and bitterly over him. 


P. 131,1.9. But lo, the sun is setting; di. 
I have endeavoured to describe an Italian sun-set asI 
have often seen it. The conttsion 3 is borrowed from that 
celebrated passage in Dante, a. a. 


_ Era gia pon &e. 
P.132, 1.1. Je was an hour ofan haat. 
~ Befvre 1. 1. in the MS. 


The sun scent ite the eastern sky. 
Flamed like a furnace, while the western glowed : 
As if another day was dawning there. « 





P.-132, 1. 15. —when armies met, * 

The Roman and the Carthagenian. Such was the ani- 
mosity, says Livy, that an earthquake,-which turned the 
course of rivers and overthrew cities and mountains, was 
felt. by none of the combatants. xxii. 5. 


P. 133; tT. 2. And by a brook 
A tradition. It has been called, from time immemorial, 
I] Sanguinetta. 


_ P. 137,1.9. Such the dicta of thy mighty voice, 
An allusion to-the Cascataé delle Marmore, a celebrated 
fall of the Velino near Terni. 


~ Pp 187, 1.14.—nd bush or green or dry, 

A sign in our country as old as Shakspeare, and still 
used in Italy. “ Une branche d’arbre, attachée @ une maison 
rustique, nous annonce les moyens de nous refraichir. 
Nous y trouvons du lait et des ceufs frais; nous voila con- » 
tens. Mem. de Goldoni.. 

There is, or was very lately, in Florence a Count wine- 
house with this inscription over the door, Al buon vino non » 
bisogna frasca. Good wine needs no bush., It was much. 


So =” 


NOTES. 265 


r _ Se by Salvator Rosa, who drew a portrait - his 
_ hostess. 


Pp. 138 ei4. A narrow glade dupelded sich as spring 
~ This upper region, a country of dews and dewy lights, 
as described by Virgil and Pliny, and still, I believe, called 
La Rosa, is full of beautiful scenery. “Who does not wish 
~ to follow the footsteps of Cicero there, to visit the Reatine 
Tempe and the Seven Waters ? 


ee P. 139, i. 3.—a sumpter- mule 
- ~ Many of these circumstances were suggested by a land- 
scape of Annibal Caracci, now in the Louvre. 


i 140, lL 2. filling the land with splendour— 


- 


‘Perhaps the m pont beautiful villa of that day was the 
Villa Mada dt ‘It is now a ruin; but enough remains of 
the plan a the grotesque-work to eenty Vasari’s account 
of it. 


The Pastor Fido, if not the Aininte: used to be often re- 
presented there; and a theatre, such as is here described, 
was to be seen in the gardens very lately. 


P.141,1.5. Fair forms appeared, murmuring melodious verse 

A fashion for ever reviving in such a climate. In the 
year 1783, the Nina of Paesiello was ae ge in a small 
wood r near Caserta. 


-P. 144, 1. 4.—the Appian, 

The street of the tombs in Pompeii may serve to give 
us some idea of the Via Appia, that Regina Viarum, i in its 
splendour. It is perhaps the most ited vestige of anti- 
quity that remains to us. 


P. 144, 1. 11. Horace himself— 

And Augustus in his litter, coming at a still slower rate. 
He was borne along by slaves; and the gentle motion 
allowed him to read, write, and employ himself as in his 
cabinet. Though Tivoli is only sixteen miles from the 
city, he was always two nights on the road.— Suetonius. 


P. 144, 1. 21. Where his voice faltered 
At the words “Tu Marcellus eris.” The story is so 
beautiful, that every reader must wish it to be true. 


me 


ts oe | 
266 NOTES. 


P. 145, 1. 7.—the centre of their universe, 
From the golden pillar in the Forum the ways ran to the 
gates, and from the gates to the extremities of the empire. 


P. 146,11. To the twelve tables, — 
The laws of the twelve tables were inscribed on pillars 
of brass, and ‘placed in the most. conspicuous part ‘of the 
forum. Dion. Hal. 


P. 146, 1. 21. A thousand torches turning night to day, 
An allusion to Cesar in his Gallic triumph. Adscendit 
Capitolium ad lumina, &c. Suetonius. 


P. 147, 1. 6. On those so young, well pleased with ail they see, 


In the triumph of ASmilius, nothing affected the Roman 
people like the children of Perseus. Many wept; nor could 


any thing else attract notice, till et were gone by. Plu- 
me 


tarch. 


P. 148, 1. 13. “ae she who said, 
Taking the fatal cup between her hands, 
Sophonisba. “The story of the marriage and the polos 
is well known to every reader. " 


P. 160, 1.7. How many realms, pastoral and warlike, lay 
Forty-seven, according to Dionys. Halicar. 1. IV. 


P. 163, 1.21. Wander like strangers 
It was not always 80. There were once within her walls 
“* more erected spirits.” 
“ Let me recall to your mind,” says Petrarch in a letter 


“/ 


s 


to old Stephen Colonna, “ the walk we took together ata — 
late hour in the broad street that leads from your palace to ¥ 
the Capitol. To me it seems as yesterday, though it was 


ten years ago. When we arriyed where the four ways 
rneet, we stopped; and, none interrupting us, di oursed 
loag on the fallen fortunes of your house, Fixing your 
eyes steadfastly upon me, and then turning the away full 
of tears, “I have nothing now,” you said, “to leave my 
‘children, But a still greater calamity awaits me—I shall” 
inherit from them all”? You remember the words, no 
doubt; words so fully accomplished. I certainly do; and 
as distinctly as the old sepulchre in the corner, on which 
we were leaning with our elbows at Vcd time.” Epist. 
Famil. viii. 1. 

The sepulchre here alluded to must have been that of 


- 


ie =U fo 


- 
- 


NOTES. 267 


Bibulus; and what an interest it derives from this anec- 
dote! Stephen Colonna was a hero worthy of antiquity ;_. 
and in his distress was an object, not of pity, but of reve- 
rence. When overtaken by his pursuers and questioned 
by those who knew him not, “I am Stephen Colonna,” he 
replied, “a citizen of Rome ™ and, when in the last extre- 
mity of battle a voice cried out to him, “ Where is now 
your fortress,Colonna?” ‘“ Here,” he answered gaily, lay- 
ing his hand on his heart. ; 


P. 164, 1.12. Music and painting, sculpture, rhetoric, 
- Music; and from the loftiest strain to the lowliest, from 
a Miserere in the Holy Week to the shepherd’s humble 
offering in Advent; the last, if we may judge from its 
effects, not the least subduing, perhaps the most so. 

Once, as I was approaching Frescati in the sunshine of 
a cloudless December morning, I observed a rustic group 
by the road-side, before an image of the Virgin, that 
claimed the devotions of the passenger from a niche in 
a vineyard-wall. Two young men from the mountains of 
the Abruzzi, in their long brown cloaks, were playing a 
Christmas carol. Their instruments. were a hautboy and a 
bagpipe ; and the air, wild and simple as it was, was such 
as she might accept with pleasure. The ingenuous and 
smiling countenances of these rude minstrels, who seemed 
so sure that she heard them, and the unaffected delight of 
their little audience, all younger than themselves, all stand- 
ing uncovered, and moving their lips in prayer, would have 
arrested the most careless traveller. 


P.164,1.13. And dazzling light and darkness visible, 

Whoever has entered the church of St. Peter’s or the 
Pauline chapel, during the exposition of the holy sacrament 
there, will not soon forget the blaze of the altar, or the dark 
circle of worshippers kneeling in silence before it. 

- P. 164, 1.18. Bre they came, 

An allusion to the prophecies concerning Antichrist. 
See the interpretations of Mede, Newton, Clarke, &c.; not 
to mention those of Dante and Petrarch. 

P. 169, 1.6. And from the latticed gallery came a chant 
Of psalms most saint-like, most angelical, 

There was said to be in the choir, among others of the 

sisterhood, a daughter of Cimarosa. . 


968. NOTES. 


P..170, 1.4. ?Zwas in her utmost need; nor, while she lives, 
Her back was at that time turned to the people ; but in 
his countenance might bé read all that was passing. The 
cardinal who officiated, was a venerable old man, evi- 
dently unused to the ceremony, and much affected by it. 


P. 171, 1..9.—the black pall, the requiem. 
Among other ceremonies a pall was thrown over her, 
and a requiem sung. 


P. 172, 1. 4. Unsheaths his wings 
He is of the beetle-tribe. 


P. 173,1.4. Those trees, religious once and always green, 
Pliny mentions an extraordinary instance of longevity 
in the ilex. “‘ There is one,” says he, “in the Vatican, older 
than’ the city itself. An Etruscan inscription in letters of 
brass attests that even in those days the tree was held sa- 
cred:” and it is remarkable that there is at this time on 
the Vatican mount an ilex of great antiquity. It is ina 
grove just above the palace garden, ‘ 


P. 173, 1.9. (So some aver, and who would not believe ?) 
I did not tell you that just below the first fall, on the side 


of the rock, and hanging over that torrent, are little ruins . 
which they show you for Horace’s house, a curious situa- _ 


tion to observe the 


Preceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda a 
Mobilibus pomaria rivis. 


Gray’s Letters. 


P, 183, 1. 6. When they that robbed were men of better faith, 
Alluding to Alfonso: Piccolomini. He was hanged at 
Florence, March 16, 1591. 


P. 183. 1.18. When along the shore, 

Tasso was returning from Naples to Rome, and had ar- 
rived at Mola di Gaéta, when he received this tribute of 
respect. ‘The captain of the troop was Marco di Sciarra. 
See Manso. Vitadel'Tasso. Ariosto had a similar adven- 
ture with Filippo Pachione. See Baruffaldi. 


P.188,1.1. Three days they lay in ambush at my gate, 
This story was written in the year 1820, and is founded 





me 


oa w 


PR els a. aN 
ae ae ce 


NOTES. Bic 269 
s 

on the many narratives which at that time were circulating 
in Rome and Naples. 


P..215, 1.1. They sland between the mountains and the sea ; 
The temples of Peestumn are three in number; and have 
survived, nearly nine centuries, the total destruction of the 
city. Tradition is silent concerning them ; but they must 
have existed now between two and three thousand years. 


P. 216, 1.17. The air is sweet with violets, running wild 
The violets of Peestum were as proverbial as the roses. 
Martial mentions them with the honey of Hybla. 


P. 216, 1.20. Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost, 
The introduction to his treatise on glory. Cic. ad Att. 
xvi. 6. For an account of the loss of that treatise, see Pe- 
trarch, Epist. Rer. Senilium. xv. i. and Bayle, Dict. in 

~ Alcyonius. 


P. 218, 1.8. ’Tis said a stranger in the days of old . 
They are said to have been discovered by accident about 
the middle of the last century. 


P. 218, 1. 12.—and Posidonia rose, 
* Originally a Greek city under that name, and afterwards 
+ a Roman city under the name of Pestum. See Mitford’s 
Hist. of Greece, chap. x. sect. 2. It was surprised and de- 
stroyed by the Saracens at the beginning of the tenth cen- 
tury. 


P. 221,1.10. The fishing-town, Amalfi. 

Amalfi fell after three hundred years of prosperity; but 
the poverty of one thousand fishermen is yet dignified by 
the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of 
royal merchants. Gibbon. 


P, 222,1.8. <A hospital, that, night and day, received 
The pilgrims of the west ; 
It was dedicated to Saint John. 


P. 223, 1.1. Grain from the golden vales of Sicily, 
There ‘is at this day in Syracuse a street called La Strada 
degli Amalfiteni. 


- 


7 2 
ea 
7c 





% ai 

or aie -* 
Ds. * ? « te le ; ‘eng 

AT oe game Si : wy i, 
al a 22 ae Not thus ! d they return, , ee 

le The tyrant slain ; " 
It was: a year, 839. Se Mis, ‘Art. Chronici 
eg agme <. 


224, 1. Be be Me their npetigent? ! 

B: sicrtcat says Giannone, they made themselves famous 
through the world. ‘The Tari) Aacattten were a cia 
ae . all nations; and their maritime code regulate 

'y where the commerce of the sea. Many churches 1 in 
tebe were by them built and endowed; by them was 
"fird nded in. Palestine that most renowned military order 
of St. John of J erusalem ; and who does not know that the 
dpariner’ 8. compass was invented by a citizen of Amalfi? 


P, 225, 1 1.“ What hangs behind that curtain?” 
This story, ifa a story it can be called, is fictitious ; and: 
have done little more than give it as T received it, ‘It has 
already appeared in prose; but with many alterations oe 

additional circumstances. 
The abbey of Monte Cassino is the most ancient and 


venerable house of the Benedictine order. It is situated 


within fifteen leagues of Naples on the inland road to 
Rome ; and no house is more hospitable. . 
P. 225, 1.8. For life is surely there and visible change, 
‘There are many miraculous pictures in Italy ; ; but none 






influence. 


At Arezzo, in the Sued of St. pede there is diidesd 


over the great altar a fresco painting of the Fall of the 
_ Angels, which has a singular story belonging to it. It was 
painted in the fourteenth century by Spinello Aretino, who 
- has there represented Lucifer as changed into a shape so 
monstrous and terrible, that it is. said to have haunted the 
artist in his dreams, and to have hastened his death, de- 
ranging him in mind and body. In the upper part St. 
Michael is seen in combat with the dragon : : the fatal trans- 
formation is in the lower part of thé picture. Vasari. 


P. 229,1.6. Within a crazed and Mitared vehicle, 
Then degraded, and belonging to a Vetturino. 


~ P, 229, 1.8. A shield as splendid as the Bardi wear, 
A Florentine family of great antiquity. In the sixty-third 


Sa 


<A believe, were ever before described = radlignabt im the «4 





* * 


¢ 


aa 
“ 





Oe ie + a 
sale o of Franco sdéchelht we read, 1, that a stranger, suddenly — 
enteri ‘ing Giotto’s study, threw down a shield and departed, 
saying, “ Paint me my arms in that shield ; ” and that Giotto, 
looking after him, exclaimed, “ Who is. he? What is he? 
He says, Paint me my arms, as if he was one of the Bardi! 
What arms does he heat 7B aay 


* Py 939, ie 12. Dovid Piatt 


« Paganino Doria, ‘Nicolo Pisani; those great seamen, — 
who balanced for so many years the fortunes of Genoarand 


Venice. $53 - 


P. 232, 1. 14. Ruffling with many an oar the erystalline sed, 
The Feluca is a large boat for rowing and sailing, much 
used in the Mediterranean. 
P. 233, 1.12. How oft where now we rode 
Every reader of Spanish poetry is acquainted with that 


‘affecting romance of Gongora, 


we 


Amarrado al duro banco, &c. 
Lord Holland has translated it in his Life of Lope de 
Vega. 


 P. 236,11. Here he lived ; 
The Piazza Doria, or, as it is now galled: the Piazza di 


San Matteo, . insignificant as it may be thought, is to me the. 


st interesting “place i in Genoa. It was there that Doria 


271 


assembled the people, when he gave them their liberty, : 


-(Sigonii Vita Dorie) ; ; and on one side of it is the church 
he lies buried in, on the other a house, originally of very 
small dimensions, with this inscription: 8. C. Andree de 
Auria Patrie Liberatori Munus Publicum. — 

The streets of old Genoa, like those of Venice, were con- 
structed only for foot passengers. 


P. 236, 1. 3. Held many a plemsce, many a grave discourse, 
See his Life by Sigonio. 


P. 236, 1.10. A house of trade 
When [I saw it in 1822, a basket-maker lived on the 
ground-floor, and over him a seller of chocolate. 


P. 237, 1. 21. . Before the ocean-wave thy wealth reflected, 


Alluding to the palace which he built afterwards, and in — 











' NOTE Bf: 
which he twice entertained the pte Cl e 
It is the most magnificent edifice on the bi eke 


Py237, 1,23. Theambitious man, that ue vw t 
“Fell from the plank. .. 


For an account of the conspiracy of Pesto, se Raha P 
son’s History of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. , 


P, 241, 1. 4.—the historian, a 

* Who he is, I have yet to. learn. The story was tol 

~ me many years ago by a great reader of the old annalist 
but I have searched every where for it in vain, 





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